Our Winnipeg Adventure, 2019 - Part 1 -- Driving

Hello everybody, welcome back!

So it has definitely been a little bit since I've last made a personal post about my life, but here we go with our Winnipeg Adventure. Now this adventure, while it was definitely important and a fun time, I did not feel like it was of so much importance that I need to go on for 10 or 15 posts about it like I am still working on doing with our 2018 Honeymoon Adventure. I still want to tell you all about what we did and what it's like out there compared to living here in Saskatchewan, but the occasion connected to the trip was of less importance than us getting married; we really just wanted to go on a family trip.

Some people may think the drive to a location is the most boring part, but I feel like the drive to and from places is part of the fun. I mean, it's about a five-hour drive to get there or back in one direction. So you definitely either need to find a way to make the drive itself into a fun activity or to enjoy the scenery along the way. Whenever we go on a long drive such as this Carley likes to have herself a nap, or watch movies downloaded onto her tablet, or listen to music or some combination of the above. I on the other hand... I'm usually the one who gets to drive most if not all of the way. Now before you complain about me getting the short end of the stick, having to drive so much while she has so much fun... at no point do I actually ask her to take over driving if I'm doing well and feeling good. Surprisingly, I actually enjoy doing most of the driving. Besides, while Carley is a fantastic driver, she doesn't like to drive in unfamiliar places... especially when those unfamiliar places generally tend to be busier than our lovely hometown of Moose Jaw.

I don't know what the traffic is like for all of you readers out there where you live, but where we live in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan the traffic is just not that busy. Really, the worst part about driving in our hometown is the parked cars on the street that make it difficult to see through. Other than that, you can get anywhere in the city you want by car in about 5 minutes... maybe 10 minutes on a slow day if you hit every single red light. I mean heck, you can pretty much walk / run from one end of Moose Jaw to the other in half an hour if you're determined. So let me tell you, driving around a larger place such as Winnipeg, Manitoba is quite a bit more stressful than driving at home. I find it absolutely crazy that driving from one place to another can take you up to an hour depending on where you're going and what the traffic is like; and all of that driving is done within the city. Thankfully we live in a world of GPS rather than paper maps so it is a lot easier to find our way around places than it would have been even just 10 years ago... With all the twists and turns and u-turns included in the GPS directions just to get from our pretty central apartment location to say... The Forks Market... I can't imagine trying to figure that out by paper.

Being around Winnipeg was strangely familiar in design and layout to other places we've been and other places we have lived such as Moose Jaw and Regina. A big difference between the small town living that we are used to compared to the larger places that we go to visit is that the parking everywhere there is paid parking for like a 2 hour time limit on it. Of course it could just be because we were basically situated downtown, or maybe it's just a thing that larger places have more paid street parking. Either way, we did learn the hard way that the street we decided to park on when we first arrived did not actually have unlimited parking after I think it was about 9 p.m.? As it turns out there was a little period of time between 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. if I remember correctly where there was no street parking allowed at all in that area because of rush hour traffic. Of course, we would have known that... if the location that we had parked had actually shown that on the sign; unfortunately the sign that we parked in front of was the only sign that did not show the time period where you could not park there. Luckily we had taken Isabelle's car seat into the apartment with us that night for the purpose of washing it out as best as we could because she spent the whole 5-hour drive there puking almost constantly because it was her first time having her car seat facing forward; it did not occur to us at all that she might get carsick on the way there. Turns out this was quite lucky because as we walked towards the location where the car should have been that morning... It wasn't there. So lucky us, on our first day there in the unfamiliar place of Winnipeg Manitoba we lost our car to a towing company because we parked in the wrong spot between 7 and 9 am; hooray for unexpected towing expenses!

Thankfully after a couple days we managed to find some nearby residential parking that did not have a time limit or needed to be paid for; it only required a short walk to and from the apartment we were staying at.

So there you go, and that is all there is to know about the fun we had when it came to driving around the city of Winnipeg. Join me next time for some information on the fun that we had with the events we were able to take part in while we were there.

~ Kyle Welykholowa


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Google+ Shut Down - Let's Start Something New

Have you heard Google+ is shut down? Crazy, I know. I've been using Google+ for quite a while now to help with posting my links to blog posts, YouTube videos, and Twitch streams; now I find myself needing other places to post these things. I found that a lot of the viewership on my blog came from posting links to groups on Google+, but instead I've just finished searching for Facebook groups to share my work with. Because Facebook is so usable and widely used by so many people, I'm hoping that I may not only find new places to share things, but also might find new things to look at myself as well as the possibility of making new friends.

With everything that has been going on in the past few months I've really let myself go. I mean in terms of my content production not only of blog posts, but in everything else as well. I haven't done any recordings or streams or posted much of anything really in the last little while. With this new month and with things going so well at home I'm hoping that the end of Winter will signify the start of something new for me. I'm looking to drive new traffic to the site and have much more entertainment for all of you. Sure I keep saying it, but I can feel it coming down the pipeline this time; this first post is the start of it all.

I've decided that something I will be changing with the way that I do things is that I'm going to finish more things before moving on to new ones. What I mean by this is that I have many Age of Wonders videos that I haven't yet posted even though they're from many months ago... I have at least 10 extra games and apps on my phone right now that I haven't yet reviewed before moving on to new games... and worst of all is that I have so many pictures and videos from so long ago that I haven't yet done anything with and now I'm running out of space on my phone to store it all. So with this planned change of pace, the way I make my new content will change as well as the way I do some things around the house with trying to finish more things before starting new ones.

If anybody has any suggestions on more places to post my works of creativity or any other wonderful suggestions to help me out, I would be greatly appreciative of any and all assistance on ways I can improve and get more interest out there. I've got a lot of upcoming plans not only for gaming content but also for spending time with my fam jam which I hope will come up with some wonderful stories for you all in the future.

=== Mobile Game Review -- Crossy Road - Arcade Clicker - 4/10 ===

Today we take a look at the mobile game, Crossy Road. I've been a little busy recently with starting my new full-time job and still working on school at the same time... along with being a little bit sick. It can be quite difficult to have enough energy to keep going when there's so much going on, so sometimes I pick simpler and easier games to play in my spare time.

If you're looking for an simple game to pick up and play where you can learn to be better every time you play while being reminded of the good old days of playing Frogger back in 1981, this game is for you! The controls are really easy to learn, just tap on the screen and you hop forwards; moving to each side and backwards can be done by swiping in the proper direction; if you are faced with a solid object or any situation where hopping forward would block the character... you'd better figure out which way to swipe to fix that before hopping forward, otherwise you're not going to move anywhere at all.

Something I'm not really a fan of when trying to be awesome at a game is RANDOMNESS. Now of course randomness is important in the replayability of a game, but there's a level of randomness in some games which is just silly; I'm talking about the type where due to uncontrollable factors, you've run into an impossible to beat situation. Does that come up in this game? Yes... sometimes you end up stuck with no holes in traffic to pass through while the ever-moving camera swallows you up or forces you to jump to your death into oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, for the most part, this isn't too much of an issue. Because it's so easy to get into a new game and because many situations are avoidable if the player is able to think and react fast enough, I don't mind the amount of randomness in this Crossy Road.

Reasons to come back to this game and keep playing after having played for... a while? Challenges I suppose. I believe a new one starts every day or every few days where a preset character and level is put forth into the world for many players to attempt to see if they can be the best at getting the furthest into the level. Based on the player's rank at the end of the challenge, they are given some sort of reward such as a special character.

I really enjoy the fact that different characters in the game don't really have an effect on how the game is played. Different characters change the setting of the game and the aesthetics, but nothing changes other than that.

I suppose the real downside to this game... is that nothing really changes. Once you've figured out how to play it reasonably well... there isn't really much left to do. I mean hey, if you can consistently get to 200 hops, then you get to keep seeing pretty much the same 200 hop idea every single game you play. What happens when you get further than 200 hops? You see more... of the same... thing.

While I believe Crossy Road is probably a one-week game at best, there is one bonus thing that really truly made me want to play in the first place; they have a version of Crossy Road at Ruckers which is basically the same game without the ability to move side-to-side or backwards. Surely this results in more randomness than I am comfortable with seeing as the game makes its decisions to move to either side on its own, but there's still a chance to play really well and get really far into a level which results in quite a few tickets.

Verdict

Gameplay: Fun and easy to pick up, but the gameplay gets quite repetitive incredibly quickly.

Sound: The sounds a basically what you'd expect; sounds of traffic driving past and honking their horns, water rushing as you jump across logs, trains running across tracks right before your very eyes.... but no music.

Replayability: No game is EXACTLY the same twice... but after a few plays, there isn't much change to the game with each new play.

Bonus: There's a version of this game made for earning tickets at Ruckers. If it wasn't for the cost of buying all those tokens just to play the game this way, I would be playing it ALL THE TIME.

SCORE: After some consideration, I have decided to give Crossy road 2/5 because I was super excited about playing it after experiencing the arcade game at Ruckers... but then I quickly lost interest after only about a week of having it on my phone.


~ Kyle Welykholowa


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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