=== Happy Easter ===

     Hey everybody, just wanted to say happy Easter to everyone and I hope you all have a great day. We had our Easter celebration last night with a family supper and get together. The food was wonderful; some of it was actually Hungarian rather than all Ukrainian this time and it was actually super good in my opinion. I wish I had room for more, but unfortunately I'm not a bottomless pit as I one was when I was younger.

     It was nice seeing family and everybody wanted to hold the baby (even my brother). I'm actually incredibly surprised at how good my brother is with children. He doesn't have any of his own, but he's always been great with my sister's children and I'm sure he'll be wonderful with ours as well. Now I really have no reason to think that my brother would ever be bad with kids. I guess knowing his personality all my life has sort of made me think that he wouldn't like them or be very good with them, but I've been pleasantly surprised ever since my sister started having children.

     My grandparents, auntie Darlene, and uncle Larry have all now seen our daughter wide awake as of last night. Apparently she's super snuggly and probably gassy. My grandparents also brought easter gifts for our precious little one. She now has two stuffed bunnies to start her collection of stuffed animals and one of them has a nose which smells like chocolate. At this point, I'm sure we love the chocolate-smelling bunny much more than she does, but if the smell lives on for a while to come, she may just love the smell of chocolate when she grows up thanks to her cute little stuffed bunny.

Have a wonderful Easter everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Semester Two Is Complete! ===

     After a long and hard-fought battle with three tests in one day, I managed to complete everything to my own satisfaction. As usual, I think I did great on my tests, but did I really? I've had this feeling before where I think I've done amazing or at least really good... and then I get my test back with a terrible mark because I didn't quite follow something correctly.

     I already know it's highly likely that I'll be re-taking one of my classes from last semester and I'm alright with that. I would obviously prefer that not be the case, but everything hit me so hard these last couple months that all it took was one bad test to ruin a class. Fortunately I have an amazingly super supportive partner in my life and thanks to her I know everything will be alright.

     I've only got one more final to do on the 21st which is a typing test. I'm looking forward to it because I love typing, but I'm also a little sad that I haven't been able to practice my speed so much this semester. I think my accuracy has gone up, but part of the problem I've had this semester has been that I'm always so cold, which makes it quite difficult to use my hands faster. If only I had some gloves or something that didn't inhibit my ability to use a keyboard and mouse.

     Well anywhos, besides all this talk about school and whatnot, I'll be having a fantastic Easter supper with my family today! Looking forward to visiting with family and eating food? ABSOLUTLEY! Looking forward to driving all the way to Regina on my day off? Not exactly... but that's alright. It's all worth it for family and food.

Have a great day everybody! I'm going to get food today! :D

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Long Weekend Ahead! ===

(Posting this on April 14th, wrote this on April 12th)

     I can't tell you enough just how excited I am for the coming long weekend. I would like to say I'm going to catch up on sleep, but instead I'll likely be keeping myself busy with all my media, our baby, and preparing for my next round of classes coming up. This semester wasn't so bad, but I'm thinking I'll change a little bit of how I've been studying. I obviously haven't been able to work on my classes quite as well as I would have liked due to having our baby recently, but I also think I haven't been focusing very well on the work I've been trying to learn.

     I've noticed that even though it takes a little bit longer to get through any textbook reading and things of that nature, I retain and understand the work much better when I type it out. I tried writing out my work once upon a time, but that's a little bit TOO slow. Typing on the other hand, does two things for me. It excercises by brain by making my hands work and learn to type better and more consistently with greater accuracy, and it allows me to focus better on the words in front of my face rather than skimming through everything to find anything that pops out at me.

     As fun as it is to save time and cut corners, I think there's a healthy balance to doing some things a little bit slower rather than trying to get everything done as fast as possible. I think learning something slowly than speeding up as you get better at something is a much better way to go until you're able to do a task or activity quickly without having to give it much thought. The first semester, I took things a little slowly and I think I did well; the second semester, I tried to cut a lot of corners an messed a few things up which may mean I'll have to retake a class at a later time. This coming third semester, I'll be going for a middle-ground sort of approach where I will take things slowly as necessary, and hope to pick up speed as things go on.

     So besides thinking so much about school and my finals which are happening tomorrow, I'm looking forward to having the next three days off followed by a calm Sunday of work. Maybe Carley and I will get ourselves some fresh air and perhaps I'll use the time to make more posts or upload more videos. I love having time to work on hobbies and things.

Have a wonderful day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

=== Age of Wonders - Game Review, Turn-based Strategy - 10/10 ===

What Are We Reviewing?
If you like turn-based strategy, whether it's in a table top game or a video game, Age of Wonders is at the top of the list.

Released: October 31, 1999
Price: $6.49 CAD
Genre: Turn-Based Strategy

     Age of Wonders was released back in 1999, so we're getting pretty close to the grand 20-year mark in age. For such an old game, you might think it would look pretty aged and unable to hold up to present-day gaming. In my opinion, this game is a classic that is still plenty of fun to play and has a great art-style that still looks great even to this day. If you go back to the original pictures of this game before it was released, the art is so simple and would easily have gotten old pretty quick. Thankfully they decided to go in a bit of a different direction which I think looks like someone painted it by hand; this sort of painted-looking art-style is definitely my favourite. Of course the visuals are important when deciding whether or not to play a game, but there's so much more to talk about.

     The gameplay is turn-based; if you're really into board games, this will feel just like playing a board game where everybody takes a turn one at a time to plan out their strategy and execute their plan of action to the best of their ability. There are some options such as having the map already explored, whether or not to have your leader as a playable character in the game, and whether the turns are taken simultaneously or one at a time. Personally, I prefer to have to explore everything on my own, have a leader, and have turns played one at a time; though every once in a while I change it up for fun.

     Games can be a little as 2-players all the way up to 12 with each player playing a different race; each of which have different advantages and disadvantages. Each game revolves around capturing cities and other landmarks, then using the income from those sources to create the right mixture of units to eliminate your opponents. If you've ever played a turn-based combat game, you may already understand how each attack has a chance to hit or miss. If you really enjoy the strategy of combat, you can choose to control each battle yourself, or have the game automatically generate an outcome for you. Obviously this speeds up the game to have it decide on an outcome for you, but the system has a certain way of doing its calculations which can sometimes give you a completely different outcome from controlling the battle on your own. One example is if you're trying to protect a unit that is low on health, you can choose to have that unit run away on your own, but the computer-generated outcome will run that unit headlong into battle even on 1 health point.

     Throughout the game you also have to choose what spells to research to help tip the scales in your favour. Your leader and additional heroes which join you during the course of the game may or may not have the ability to cast spells. These leaders and heroes have an amount of spell points which get refreshed at the beginning of each new turn and from this they can cast spells which each cost a number of spell points. Choices of spells can change the state of the overworld map, enchant units to make them stronger, or can be used in battle to turn the tides in an otherwise unwinnable situation.

     If you can't tell, I absolutely love this game and could go on and on about all the great qualities forever, but unfortunately at some point I have to acknowledge the grit of the game. There are some points which can be a little bit painful either due to the age of the game or due to design. Depending on how much time you have, you may enjoy watching all the animations. Some days I like having a relaxing time watching the animations go on, but they can be a little bit slow sometimes which makes an already long game take even longer to play. You can be playing just one map for an entire month without proceeding to the next scenario. This is why I tend to play while running a program which speeds up the game. My only other real gripe about Age of Wonders is that it has a habit of crashing while playing in any kind of windowed mode. This usually isn't a bad thing as I prefer to play on true fullscreen anyways, but there is another problem where if you tab out of the game and tab back in, it likes to either crash or not open back up... which can make it difficult if you have other things going on while you want to play some Age of Wonders. This makes you have to plan sessions to play rather than just opening it up whenever for a bit while doing other things.

     Overall, even with the negatives of this game, I have to give Age of Wonders 10 / 10 because it's just so amazing for me. I highly recommend getting this game and playing through it if you're into strategy. The Age of Wonders games are my favourite turn-based strategy series so far (though I haven't managed to start playing the new Age of wonders III yet).

     If you're interested in seeing some gameplay, you can head over to my Age of Wonders Gameplay page or you can watch my videos directly on my YouTube channel TheDaemonVirus.

~ Kyle Welykholowa

Almost Two Weeks Already.

     It's hard to believe it has already been nearly two weeks since the birth of our daughter. Personally I'm not a fan of all the crying and loud noises, but so far it hasn't been TOO bad. I think Carley and I are starting to get a sort of rhythm going. Surely there will be much more challenges to come, but at the moment, I think we're doing pretty well.

     Both of us have been on and off tired at different times and let me tell you... when you have a baby, there isn't much time to have everything planned out like you may have used to do. I like to plan things out and get things done at certain times, so on, and so forth. Now... I try to get everything I'm hoping to done during the quiet times that I have until the next time I hear that familiar crying sort of whining thing. It's not all cries and awful noises though, she's really not all that bad. I'm absolutely looking forward to days when she's more communicative and talkable and things.

     The best news is that Furgle is amazing with her. He likes to sniff her a lot and get his nose right up in her face, but he doesn't lick her too much or try to bite at her and things. He still likes to hang around with us and normally isn't too much of a pain. Carley takes him out for a walk almost every day because she's trying to get back into shape and healthy before having her jaw surgery and then doing this process all over again. Furgle is definitely still our baby and will continue to be as long as we have him.

     I'm glad it seems like we've figured out something that works for all of us before my finals for this semester and the start of next semester. With work, school, and our daughter, it's certainly a lot of work to handle each and every day, but it's all working towards getting what we need for our family. Soon enough I'll be able to start applying for a better-paying job so we won't have to live so tightly when it comes to spending.

We'll get there for sure, it's only a waiting game now. Have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

First day back at work since baby was born.

     So today was my first day back to work since our daughter was born; oh my goodness was I ever a mess this morning. So I'm almost at work and I realize... I have no keys to get into work... great. I send a text to my boss who says I may be able to talk to one of our associates who lives nearby and gives me the address. I run over there and get there just as she pulls into her parking space and tells me she just let someone else into the office as well. She drives me back over to the office and lets me in and the first thing I do is grab the extra set of keys I know are available.

     Alright, so everything is good, right? Wrong. I have a showing this afternoon who calls me and asks if he can have his showing done earlier. I agree to that and make plans to meet him downtown to do the showing... and then end up calling him back to tell him I can't do the showing because I don't have keys for downtown... I forgot them at home. He asked if there was anything else I would be able to show him and I tell him I can show him things around here.

     So now's the fun part: He gets here, I talk to him a bit and figure out what he's looking for, find options, stroll out of the office with him in tow walking out of the building and to another building with the vacant unit to show, get to the door of the unit............. I left my keys in the office. So I had to ask the guy to wait so I could run over to the associate's place and ask her to let me in again. She has to call another associate who's in the area to do a couple showings to swing by and let me back into the office.

     Ugh, what a silly morning this has been. I don't think I've ever been more disorganized since I've started working here. One thing after another this morning. I'm dearly hoping I don't have to do much else this afternoon seeing as I'm not sure at this point if I'll manage to do it correctly or if I'll somehow manage to lock myself out of the office AGAIN with no keys.

     What caused all of this? Well I'm feeling pretty good for sleep. We managed to sleep in pretty good yesterday which I think caught me up at least to where I need to be as long as I have a caffeine or two in the morning. But seriously, all I was thinking about this morning was NOT work. My thoughts this morning consisted of "Please stop crying, I don't like loud, here's a bottle and a clean diaper" and "Awe... Furgle... you probably shouldn't be laying in the baby's bed thinger, but you're VERY cute."

Just wanted to share a fun story with you today. Have a lovely day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa

The Baby Is Finally Born!

     What an amazing event to finally watch our baby be born. She's here now and ready to explore the worl--... oh... she's asleep. She was pretty wide awake at first, probably something to do with being thrust into some alien world she's not used to. She's eaten a couple times and this morning she managed to have one of the biggest poops I've ever seen... compared to her body weight.

     So far, Carley is super amazed with her. With all of the experience she has with children, she's terrified of newborns; She wants to do everything so gentile and to be sure she doesn't hurt the baby. Me on the other hand... I have no idea what to do with kids at all. Alright well... that's not totally true, I think between the two of us, we have plenty of experience to deal with toddlers... it's babies we're unsure about; we're plenty prepared for having a toddler. 

     A couple days later and here we are at home. I was terrified to bring her home and not have the support of the nurses at the hospital, but I think we're managing so far. She seems to sleep sometimes and then wake herself up every once in a while and get a little bit fussy. At the moment she's pretty much an angel during the day, then she becomes a monster at night. Last night in particular we had quite a few issues getting her to go to sleep until I found the swaddler and used it on her in place of a regular blanket. I don't know how other people do it, but neither Carley, nor I are capable of doing a great job of swaddling her with a regular blanket. At this point it seems totally insane and I'm absolutely looking forward to getting another one or two to use throughout her years.

     Besides that, we're holding on for now. I'm not looking forward to some upcoming drives to work where I'll be super tired falling asleep, especially considering the fact that I have such a long drive to work. I'm sure I'll pull through with a healthy supply of caffeine to keep me going on those particularly tough days. Between work, school, a baby, and our puppy, I'll have a lot to keep me busy. Oh yeah, and I have hopes that I'll be able to grow a garden, practice my dusty violin, and keep on blogging and streaming as we go along as well. I would love to find more time to stream and / or record YouTube videos because those I particularly find enjoyable, but that may have to wait for a bit depending on how things are going... I mean... I do have the recent addition of a baby in my family to take care of now.

Well, that's all for now, have a great day everybody! ^_^

~ Kyle Welykholowa



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