Midterms February 2017 - Part 2

     I haven't received the marks for my midterms yet, but I'm sure I've done really well. It feels great to be able to do so well on my tests with everything else going on at the same time. I haven't been able to put as much work into studying as I would have liked, but I'm confident that I've managed to pull through anyways. One of the advantages I have is that a lot of this work I have already learned through high school, or previous courses I've attempted to take, or just from being proficient with computer programs in general. I think this semester is going very well for me and hopefully next semester will continue like this as well.

     One of my goals in this year of my life is to learn to do some things so well that it's all muscle memory. So much so, that I'm comfortable doing things without having to think about it, but just doing it at a comfortable pace. Then, once I'm able to do that will come the speed of being able to do those things without having to think so much but still pushing myself to continue doing so just a little bit faster each time.

     Typing is a great example of what I mean. Previously, I have proven myself to be capable of typing at a very fast rate, but I get slowed down by having to use backspace a lot. So what I'm hoping to be able to do is have a much higher accuracy rate by slowing down a little bit and getting used to hitting things right the first time. It's honestly a little bit tough to force myself to slow down rather than going as fast as I can and performing the same as always. It takes a little bit of change to be able to improve. Sometimes that means doing something a little bit worse than before; in the end, you do better than before.

     This is something I would like to do better at with other things as well. Obviously I would like to have this amazing muscle memory when it comes to video games, but perhaps I could put enough practice into my violin to do so, or making crafts, or writing, or even just thinking in a certain way. I have noticed that I lose a lot of productivity to getting sidetracked or taking time to think about things for a while... but what if I was able to think and keep going at the same time? There's a lot of thoughts I've had about this sort of thing; knowing I can do better and be more productive in a lot of things. It's so easy to just sit and watch a show and not do anything of value in that time, but what if I could keep myself going instead of falling into that rut of non-thinking? Strange how some midterm tests make me think of these things.

Just something to think about. ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Figgy Duff - Woman of Labrador {Cover - Kyle Welykholowa}

     So I decided to sing a song a couple nights ago and here it is, uploaded for you all to see. I hope you enjoy what I've done and would love to hear your honest feedback on it. It takes a lot of nerves to upload myself singing for the world to see, but it is something I enjoy doing and would like to do more of whenever I get the chance. Please take a watch and tell me what you think.

     Should I upload more songs? I'm personally quite proud of this and I have another one to upload pretty soon as well. Go ahead and share this if you enjoy it. I would like to know what the world thinks of me and my entertainment.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Midterms February 2017 - Part 1

     My first two midterms are done and now I wait for tomorrow when I will do my last midterm and set up my keyboarding final tomorrow morning. I'm quite sure I did really well on my two tests today. In fact, this may be the best I've felt taking tests recently. At no point did I really feel like I had no idea what I was doing. I suppose there's not much for me to really tell other than how happy I am over today.

     It's nice really, to be able to relax and feel good about things. Classes are going well, work is going well, things at home are going well. How can I complain about anything at this time? Honestly... I can't. I'm having a great time and I'm happier than ever. Now, perhaps I'll have a nap and prepare myself for my next midterm.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Diehard Dungeon - Game Review - Rogue-like 6/10

     You enter a small hallway with a chest in the center of the room. You open the chest to find you have zero to three slot machine rolls which dictates what extra skills you may have when going in to the dungeon just beyond the door at the end of the hall. You approach the door and notice you seem to have a pet chest following you; picking up anything of value for you nearby. Determined to escape with your life, you enter the Diehard Dungeon.

     I've been meaning to review this game for some time now; I've been putting it off because I've wanted to complete all the achievements. Unfortunately, some of the achievements require a lot of grinding and good luck to get certain combinations of things in a level to even allow you to progress on these grinding achievements. Now, achievements don't make or break a game. They just provide goals to give reasons to play a game again and again even if the game isn't actually very good.

     Diehard Dungeon isn't a TERRIBLE game; it's good. Just... good. I don't find it to be a great game. I think part of that is because I'm a mouse-and-keyboard type of gamer and the controls seem to be a little better suited for a controller. So the controls seem to be a little bit clunky to me, but they're still workable. You're bound to have difficulties early on until you get the hang of things and then for the most part, you should be able to avoid everything and win nearly every time... depending on the items you get. At no point are you guaranteed to get an item. Every time to find a chest, you may get up to three rolls, or you may get zero. Once you find out how many rolls you get, it becomes like a jackpot machine. You have to match three of the same picture to get an item, but there's no skill to it at all; you get whatever the roll decides to give you. Then there are tokens that you randomly get throughout the game either by winning or picking up hearts when at full health, or by randomly being dropped during battle with the enemies.

     You have two options for combat; you may swing your sword which can be charged up for a circular attack, or you may shoot your gun which knocks enemies back, then explodes with another knock-back. The combat works, though in my opinion it can be a little dry. There are times when using your sword is obviously better, but using your gun is so much safer in nearly every situation so long as you're able to dodge properly. There are some traps on each floor which you have to avoid which are either pressure plates that shoot arrows or javelins at you, or spinning blades that randomly roam around the room (which sometimes also shoot arrows at you).

     This game isn't bad. I just don't think it's great. The achievements kept me playing longer than I had wanted to because I was determined to complete them all, but now I've lost interest and think it's time to move on. If you like rogue-like games, this one may interest you, but for me this game will be getting 6/10 for rogue-like games.

Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Midterms - February 2017

     It is my second semester and the next round of tests are fast approaching. Am I ready? Am I prepared? I think I have some more reading and practical applications to do to be sure, but so far I think things have been going well. It's tough trying to balance work school and home life all together. Once school is done though, it will all be worth it. So long as I can keep myself on task, I'm on track for getting myself a better-paying job to support my family. With that comes happiness and comfort for us. Work and family will be a solved puzzle at that time. Then all that's left is my personal success.

     I want to have a successful hobby. Or rather... I want to make my hobby successful. I believe any hobby can be made successful with enough hard work and dedication. That is why I continue to blog and make videos and put myself out there. Because I have had some success with what I have  done and I'm sure I can do even better if I just put my mind to it and take more action to promote myself further than I already have.

     This course I'm taking for school right now is a door to open many possibilities in the future. I only need to prove my hard work and determination to show others, but more importantly myself, that I have what it takes to pull through and overcome the obstacles ahead of me no matter what path I choose to travel.

     Nearly half a course completed, only half more to go. ^_^

~ Kyle Welyholowa

My Blog Has Progressed!

     The most amazing thing happened only a couple days ago; my Google AdSense application was accepted! My blog officially has enough content and traffic that I'm allowed to run ads on my site. Of course that's not likely to earn me much at this point, but I think it's pretty cool that if I put enough work into it and I'm patient, I have the opportunity to make something out of this. I didn't think I would be accepted at least until I would have something more like 500 people looking at my site per day. At this point I'm so happy that I've already been accepted.

     I don't really have a ton to talk about today besides my excitement over the situation. This really motivates me to put more effort into this and see where I can take it. It's really something so small that doesn't have a huge impact on my life right now... but it's actually kind of amazing just what kind of effect it has. It's like someone coming, giving me a pat on the back, and saying "you've done a good job, so here's an opportunity for you."

     The hardest part with this now is really that I actually have to remain diligent and continue to make posts. In the past I've put off my want to write things to do other things instead either for my own amusement or out of necessity. Now, I have an excuse to make this something higher up on my priority list. I now have a reason to listen to the news or read articles and then write my own thoughts and post it for all of you to read. Now this really has a purpose; something I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen. Yeah, I would look at my stats and see maybe one or two more people viewing my site each time I'd post something; in the grand scheme of things, it often looked like the same pattern of numbers going up and down every time.

     So yeah, I'm excited, and now I have new goals to work for. Just when I thought I was getting stuck in a rut, this breakthrough has happened. Obviously I still have a bunch of work which must be done to continue my progress to a level which would really help us out each and every month. If I can get to that point though... if I can get more traffic to my site, more content out there, more entertainment to the people, more reason for people to keep coming back and bringing more and more people with them... then I can get somewhere with this. I really have an amazing opportunity here and I can only hope that I'm able to pull through with what I need.

     Wish me luck everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Tiny Sheep - Mobile Game Review 8/10 ===

     So even after saying I would stop playing Egg Inc., I find myself still playing it just because--oh wait... this is Tiny Sheep. I don't often find idle games to be a lot of fun, but recently I have found a few which I believe are worth mentioning.

     Tiny sheep is a game where you clone sheep in an effort to make money by selling different kinds of wool based on what farm you have. You have to make more and more sheep which passively earn you money until your farm value is high enough that you can upgrade your farm to the next wool type. The visuals are fun and if you enjoyed Egg Inc., you'll enjoy this game as well. The biggest different really, is in whether you would prefer chickens or sheep.

     Now, recreating a previous formula in a new way is not a bad thing at all; this game is certainly fun. The problem I see with recreating something in a different image is that it either has to have some improvements, or it won't be terribly more interesting than the previous iteration. Unfortunately for me, this game is so incredibly similar to Egg Inc., that I feel as though I have to give it a lower score than I gave to Egg Inc. Tiny Sheep does make you feel like you are progressing quite quickly due to using large values of money and giving you lots of large bonuses through watching ads, but upon closer inspection, it feels to me either as though the rate of progress is the same as before, or less.

     I'm not sure what to say about this game that hasn't really already been said in my Egg Inc. review (which I keep mentioning a lot, and for that I'm sorry). I do really like the visuals in this game; I think I actually like them more than Egg Inc. You still have birds (drones) to tap on to make extra money, there is golden wool (golden eggs) for more important long-term research, and you're still filling barns (hen houses) and driving your wool (eggs) off to the world for profits.

     Tiny Sheep is a fun game, but it isn't a new game. It's not bad, but it's not something fresh. I'm going to give it an 8/10 for Idle Games for those reasons and put it to rest after having just got it, because I already know this game inside and out.

     Have a great one everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Puppy Training

     For anybody who has never trained a puppy, they can be a complete pain to deal with. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love our dog, but he has been sooooooooo annoying for us to deal with at times. Usually he's pretty good for us, but he loves to bite as I would imagine most dogs do before they learn not to.

     Now some of you out there might meet Furgle and think, "How could he be a pain? He's such a sweetheart!" Well, don't let him fool you! He's actually a tiny terrorizing monster at all other points in time. Okay, maybe I'm over exaggerating a bit. He's actually not that bad when he isn't biting us all the time. We've recently started using a spray bottle whenever he starts biting to get his attention and get him to stop. He's not the biggest fan of water and to be honest, we're not really complaining about it. He's learning quickly what it means and hasn't been biting nearly as much as before.

     As for house-training him, he's been pretty good with that so far as well. He doesn't really seem to get HOW to tell us he needs to go outside yet and rather stops pretty quickly and just starts peeing... but at least he's learned to pee and poop on the pad (mostly) rather than anywhere in the kitchen. Probably in about a month from now he should be big enough to hold his waste long enough to train him to only go outside (mostly). He's progressing well I think and he seems like a pretty smart dog to me, so we'll see how long it takes him to learn everything we need to teach him. I'm looking forward to him being calm and mature enough to actually teach him some proper commands and things.

     With one solution comes another problem though. This problem isn't really a HUGE deal though compared to the issues that are possible with a dog. Furgle has... started to hump everything. Oh goodie.... I have to admit, it's a little bit funny, but I suppose it's not exactly something that I'd like him doing to things or people in public. He'll surely calm down once he gets fixed as most dogs do. We have no plans to breed any dogs, so I don't think that will be an issue at all. I'm sure just a little bit of persistence will get him to stop in no time. He usually picks up on things pretty quickly so I'm hoping we won't have too many issues with the coming baby on the way.

     So far, best Christmas present ever! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Using Work Skills At Home

     This isn't really something I've thought about greatly previously, but I think I may have had a wonderful brainwave. At work, we have a daily task list. I'm sure it seems simple enough, but it's a really good reminder of what we have to do each day. And of course, we have the option of adding new tasks to future days if anything comes up that isn't normally on the list. I'm beginning to think more and more that this is something I should implement around the house somewhere. I think the easiest way for me to do so would be to use my whiteboard for such a thing.

     In the past I have tried a few different things with varying amounts of success. I've tried to just remember everything in my head... which works alright, unless you get distracted by something or are tired or anything to that effect.

     I've also tried using programs on my computer like a notepad or something; this works alright as long as you remember to open and update it every time something changes. This should be simple enough, but I've notice that if it isn't visible, it can be quite difficult to remember to update continuously.

     I've also used Google Calendar; this actually works really well also if you remember to update it all the time. This COULD be what I will start getting myself into a habit of doing along with updating my whiteboard. I think both options together would be a good habit to get into.

     Anywhos, I just wanted to talk a little bit about something we do at work that I think would be a good tool to implement at home to help keep everything under control and organized going into the future. We'll see where it goes from here. I'll keep you all updated.

     Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa