First Day of Spring 2019

Hey everyone!

In case you didn't know, today is the first day of Spring in 2019. I can absolutely say that I'm super happy for Spring to finally be here with all the warming up and melting that comes with it. I have great hopes of getting out more this year with the family; especially the dogs who didn't get out too much over the Winter. Really the whole family deserves to be able to get outside more and enjoy the nice weather. I'm hoping for much more trips to the park, the beach, and perhaps we'll be able to find some time to get out on some adventures to other places as well.

Don't get me wrong, Winter is great, and the coming warmer weather wouldn't be as awesome without the long drawn-out cold to really make you miss how nice it is to be able to go outside in shorts and a t-shirt. Without this warming and cooling cycle throughout the year, I absolutely wouldn't appreciate the changes in weather as much as I do now. I do enjoy going out for walks in the cold weather when the snow is out, but now that the temperatures are rising... though I'm not looking forward to all the mud that comes with it, I'm super excited to be able to get outside with a dog or two in the evening for a walk or a run 

For me, Spring is the real beginning of the year with new growth and warm weather. I'm thinking now is a great time to start a new thing of updating my goals with each season and I'll try to give a summary of how I feel I did at the end of the season.

SPRING GOALS

Family - I want to spend more time with my family doing engaging things together. I'm getting rather tired of TV and movies, so I'm wanting to play more games together whether that's board games, video games, or outside activities.

Health - Enough is enough! Time to get into shape and be more healthy than I have been in the past. My chosen type of work often has me sitting anywhere from 4 - 12 hours on a work day, so I definitely need to be doing some sort of extra type of activities to keep myself in good health. What a great excuse to get one or both of the dogs out for a walk as often as possible. Perhaps I should also mention that I have a brand new bicycle to get a ton of use out of this year; maybe I can even work on building some muscle this year as well, wouldn't that be great?

Work - I hate to say it, but money is an important factor this season. My goal will be a little bit mixed I think. Right now I'm quite happy with my job and it definitely has a lot of potential room for making extra money and even advancing through the system, but now that I'm done with my Office Administration Certificate, I may want to start looking for a higher-grade job.

Hobbies - Other goals while I'm considering what exactly I want to do on the work front include other options such as continuing to work on this here blog and my other content production avenues which may provide a secondary stream of income in the future. Definitely a bit of a dream there, but I wouldn't mind hitting something big one day and making the best of it... though I'm not BANKING on that happening. I'll definitely continue streaming and try to get on top of taking and posting pictures more regularly whenever we do fun things. I also may use some of my time to get back into playing my violin and try to do some writing and drawing as well... I have more than enough materials to work with on all of that. Most of all, I would actually really like to start reading more books again. I have a lot of books I would love to read again and a bunch of new books I would like to start reading as well... I'll work on that.

Projects - My other goals for the season are quite simple: clean up the house, and get some things done. This sort of covers everything because I have a really bad habit of procrastinating on things, but the most important part of this area is that I finally get the house back in order not only upstairs, but also in the porch, out in the backyard, and down in the basement. Things are a mess and there are also many house projects that we've talked about that I would like to finally get done.

So there we go, there's a lot to work on. I think it may be because I'm feeling behind on many things, but that's definitely something that I know I can catch up on... as soon as I stop procrastinating on, like... everything. So with that, wish me luck and let me know about your goals for the Spring season. As always, I'm always accepting of any ideas you guys may have and love hearing from you.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Content Reset - Back To Basics

We're doing a content reset back to basics. I've had some time to think about this whole challenge thing that I decided to start doing back at the beginning of June; I quite simply don't like it. I've heard That some people think my content is not as good when I'm pushing it out as quick as possible, which makes sense; It's hard to get something out every single day and have it be good quality.

I'm still aiming to post links to my content on my blog so it can all be found whether that's reviews, book readings, game-plays, or whatever else I decide I want to do; everything will be much more thought out than it has been for the past couple months.

The upcoming plans for the blog include more personal posts about current events and what's going on around the house. We'll be doing more reviews of food and movies because I'm a fan of both and I want you all to know what the best places are to eat and what the best movies are! Of course we'll continue to review more games as we play through them, complete them, or decide we're done with the ongoing content of certain games that never end if you keep on playing all the time. I'm also very excited to tell you all that I will be continuing to read through books partially because I love to talk and share things with you all, and especially because it's gives me a perfect excuse to take more time to read books!

It was actually my fiancee who mentioned that people have asked her about the quality of my blog. I'm not sure what I would do without Carley helping me along with suggestions and things. She seems to have some sort of way with people and getting them to talk that I just don't understand. I'm glad I have her to get information for me, because I just can't seem to get many people to comment on links or posts. Thank you Carley for being the awesomest!

My goal is to give everyone the best content I can, which means I need to look at what I'm doing, take criticism, and turn that into better and more effective content. The only way I can continue to do this is by having your comments whether that's on a link you've seen somewhere else or directly on my post. Don't be shy, you're more than welcome to give your comments of exactly how you feel about everything, if you think it's something you like, or if you think it may be more effective to do things in a different way.

So if there's anything else you'd like to see coming up, please let me know your thoughts and suggestions and I'll do my best to accommodate every reasonable thing I can do.

As usual, everybody is fantastic and awesome and I hope you all have the best day! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Future Plans ===

     I've been thinking about what's coming up for me for my future plans. There are some things I would like to be doing coming up and I think they're reasonable things to plan for. In the past I've never really made any plans to stick to or real goals to follow, but now I find myself wanting to have some goals with which I can give myself a measure of success.

     First on my list is that I have a lot of games started, but few that I've actually ever finished. I would like to make it a goal to finish some of my games so that I can retire them. Of course there are some games which are really fun and I'll probably play them for a really long time even after I've beaten them tons of times. Other games I've only started playing and haven't found the time to finish or I've gotten distracted by other games and activities. This leads me into my next goal.

     My next goal is to use these games that I want to play through, whether that's finishing them or replaying them or whatever else I decide to do with them to create more content. I've been slacking lately on the content production and that's absolutely something I really enjoy doing which I would like to continue having as something strong and important in my life. I've managed to hit a large number of views with one of my game reviews I posted on my blog and that makes me feel awesome and want to continue doing more game-related content and other content production in general. So this will have me continuing to make blog posts and making more of an effort to spread that content creation into my YouTube channel for recorded episodes and Twitch for live streaming depending on the type of game being played.

     Outside of playing games I have a couple goals a well. The first is getting my garden ready for planting for next year. I didn't manage to do so this year, but with the heat wave going on I guess that means we're saving money as a result right now. I'm really wanting to have everything ready so I can grow a successful garden next year.

     The next offline goal I have is practicing my drawing. I really enjoy drawing things but I'm usually too busy to do so because it usually takes me a long time to make anything due to being such a perfectionist when it comes to making artwork. I have a set of pencils to draw with and ink wells and dip pens to use but I just haven't had a chance to use them since I got them. I'm going to make it a plan to take some time out of some of my days to use these things to grow my skills at things I enjoy doing.

     Another goal I have is to practice music. I have a violin which has been sitting recently and desperately needs to be used. I have also gotten a recorder from the dollar store which I can use for simple flute sort of music. If you haven't noticed... I also enjoy singing and using that for some of my content. I'm going to make a plan to at least practice some of this so I'm more comfortable with it in the future and then perhaps I'll have an easier time creating more in the future.

     The last goal I have at this time is to start reading more again. This has been something I've been planning to do for quite some time where I pick a book and read it for a YouTube video. If there are other people in the world like me, then they have lots of time to listen to things, but not so much to actually do things. Hence, I figure some people would like to listen to the reading of books and things. This gives me two reasons to read books; so that I can read something I'm interested in reading, and so I can share it with the rest of the world.

     I hope you've enjoyed reading my ideas and that perhaps you're looking forward to something in this list coming from me in the future. Feel free to let me know! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Spring Semester ===

     If you've never taken Spring classes at school, then oh my goodness... let me tell you about how different this semester is compared to last semester. My previous semesters have been much MUCH slower than this one. I didn't realize it at first, but I already have midterms coming up in about a week and my finals are only about a month later. I have assignments due almost every day with not much of a break between each one.

     It's definitely been really hard to keep up with everything and still help out around the house and with the baby. I want to be able to do a great job at work and around the house and with school all at the same time, but instead I think I'm tiring myself out and not doing an amazing job of anything. It's a tough position to be in; I know I want to do so much that I wouldn't sleep if I didn't have to, but I simply don't have enough energy to accomplish everything I want to do at this time.

     As an example: my blog. I have hopes and dreams and goals of wanting to post things at least every couple days in an effort to grow my site and viewers and also as a way of sharing myself with the world in a way which could possibly benefit others. Instead, I see myself only posting maybe once a week at best and the rest of the time I sit in front of my computer after work and fall asleep until I finally drag myself to bed. This unfortunately happens with homework some days as well.

     Combined with the busy-ness of how work has been at this time of the year, I can certainly say I'm looking forward to after June once I'm done with 99% of school. I'm looking forward to finally having time to think without feeling guilty that I'm not constantly working.

Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

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

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

Egg Inc. - Mobile Game Review - 10/10

     I've been playing this game for a few months now because it's just so much fun. Egg Inc. is an idle game where you press a button to hatch chickens which then run across your screen into a hen house where they then lay eggs for you to sell. As I read that, it makes the game sound incredibly interactive, but really the chickens laying eggs and making money from the eggs being sold is just something that is implied behind the scenes.

     So this game looks nice. It has a sort of art-style that I like to see and it's a pretty simple game. The most interactive thing about this game is that you get to shoot down drones which either make you large amounts of money, or golden eggs. Money is used to upgrade your eggs and farm so that you make more money faster and to hatch more chickens faster. Golden eggs are used for epic upgrades which persist even if you prestige.

     Prestige is a common thing to see in idle games. It's a way to make the game last longer by starting over again from the beginning, only with the added bonus of, say... + 1% to the money you make for each object you have related to the prestige system. In this game, it's another type of egg called a soul egg.

     (If you couldn't tell, a lot of this game revolves around eggs.)

     I found Egg Inc. on the Google Play store by accident just because I was browsing and instantly fell in love with it. I think it's a great adaptation of the idle genre. A game where you make progress, then continue to make some progress even while you're not playing the game. It starts off quite quickly even without any prestige. You soon find yourself unlocking new eggs, selling your farm to start a new farm where you make more expensive eggs over and over again. Everything goes great! Until you hit that roadblock...

     Like every idle game, it ropes you in with the promise of fast and rewarding progress. Completing missions left and right for those oh so valuable golden eggs. Upgrading your egg to the next level again and again. Until finally, you find yourself with a quest that takes a looooooooooooong time. And when I say long, I mean some of these quests would take a week straight of holding down that "hatch chicken" button until you finally get the number of chickens required to complete the quest. Or longer if you leave the game to hatch chickens for you while you're not there. And during this time, you either can't upgrade your egg because that would cause you to have to start over with no chickens... or you just don't have enough farm value to upgrade even if you wanted to.

     Now, when I say this, I don't mean this is a bad game by any means. That's just part of the idle genre. The game wouldn't last very long if it didn't come to a point where you have much much MUCH higher goals to reach. But at this point... if you're like me, then you want so badly to continue playing because you want to 100% the game. But at the same time, if you have better things to do and more fun things to move on to, it's just not worth it to continue playing.

     Even after saying that, I absolutely recommend this game. I got my girlfriend hooked on it too just by asking her to hatch a few chickens for me while I was busy. If you want something to keep you busy during those times when you're bored out of your mind, this game does deliver. Even if you don't finish the game up to the very end, I absolutely think you should give this one a go. At this point, I firmly believe this is the best idle game I've played.

     Egg Inc. gets a 10 / 10 from me for the idle genre. Have a great day everybody!

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== PC Game Review -- Crown and Council - Turn-Based Strategy - 6/10

     Crown and Council is a really simple game made by the maker of Minecraft. The goal of the game is to conquer your enemies by attacking them in a risk-like fashion where a random roll done behind the scenes decides whether or not the money you have spent on attacking is successful.

     Unfortunately there isn't much to say about this game. The levels are randomly generated and range from large maps with lots of land to conquer, to small maps with only a few islands.

     I would say the game is fun to play for a short time, but gets boring quite quickly. The best way I can describe the experience would be to say... imagine playing Risk many times again and again and again in a short time. Sure, Risk is fun, but there isn't much to it. After a while it gets a little stale.

     So I'm giving this game 6/10. It's not really anything new, but it is cute and it's also free, which means if you're looking for something to kill time that doesn't cost anything, I see nothing wrong with recommending this game to you.

~ Kyle

The Girl Upstairs Listens To Some Loud Music

     Some people might find it annoying to hear the music of their neighbor going on really loudly... but as it turns out, she actually listens to good music. If not for her, I wouldn't have just found the artist Kygo. Apparently a Norwegian DJ who has made some really good remixes and things including a remix of I See Fire by Ed Sheeran which I REALLY like.

     So now I have some new music to listen to all because of my upstairs neighbor who plays her music way too loudly for any reasonable person to ever do. And oddly... I don't mind at all. Music has been pretty important to me recently. Without it, I don't know if I would have made it to where I am right now. It motivates me to get things done; to post on my blog for all you wonderful readers out there, and to make videos for anyone who likes those.

     Things feel good right now. This feels the start of a new chapter in my life story. I feel like I have something meaningful to do for the world, even if it's only for a small number of people. But it still makes me happy to have had an effect on even just one life out there. Some people might think it's silly, but I have a want, a need, a goal... to make other people happy. If this is how I can do so, then this is what I want.

     By this time next year, if I had one hundred people who enjoyed reading my words, listening to me talk or sing, watching my videos I think I would be happy. That would be one hundred people who's lives I'd have changed and made just a little bit better than before. Maybe I'll reach that goal, maybe I won't. In time, I'll see where life takes me. I have an ever-changing story that may be foreshadowing one thing, but may turn out as something completely different. The only way to find out... is to keep reading what will be written.

~ Kyle