{"id":426,"date":"2016-10-31T15:29:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-31T19:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tayloraliss.com\/blog\/?p=426"},"modified":"2016-11-02T22:16:16","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T02:16:16","slug":"happy-halloween","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tayloraliss.com\/blog\/?p=426","title":{"rendered":"Happy Halloween!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Halloween! 4 months since my last post! So what’s going on?<\/p>\n

Well, my 6-month anniversary at Monster has come and gone! I’ve been enjoying the job and learning\u00a0new things every day. Our company also was acquired by Randstad<\/a> – a Dutch human resource consulting firm. I’m not sure what the future holds, but I’m unabashedly optimistic.<\/p>\n

I’ve started seriously working on an Android course<\/a> through Udemy.com. I want to create some cool phone apps, maybe even a game one day. The course is run by this guy named Tim Buchalka and I really like it so far. It’s a great course in my opinion because he is always keeping up on the latest developments in Android studio. When something changes, he’s quick to address it so that students don’t become lost. I just finished a calculator app last night, so I think the course is going well!<\/p>\n

I started playing the guitar again! I convinced my wife to let me pick up an electric guitar and I’ve been playing it pretty regularly for the past two weeks. I bought the\u00a0Epiphone<\/span> Les Paul Electric Guitar Player Pack<\/a> from Guitar Center for ~$200. It came with everything I needed to start playing\u00a0and I’m enjoying\u00a0it a lot. I’ve found\u00a0JustinGuitar.com<\/a> is really the best site for beginners. Tons of free content by a really competent teacher. In addition, nothing beats just picking one of your favorite songs and learning how to play the more energetic riffs. I’ve found that Marty Schwartz<\/a> is another really awesome teacher for learning songs. It’s really surprising how easy to play a lot of famous songs are. I’ve been messing around with Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground<\/a> by the White Stripes, Brain Stew<\/a> by Green Day, I Walk the Line<\/a> by Johnny Cash, and Brown Eyed Girl<\/a> by Van Morrison.<\/p>\n

I’ve also taken a break from video games for a bit. I want to focus more on productive things like learning guitar and programming. I’ll be starting up my winter classes soon, so I need to get back into the swing of things with serious study habits. Now that I’ve been at Monster for half a year, I can apply for tuition reimbursement which will really help out my\u00a0finances.<\/p>\n

That being said, I have been slightly distracted by upcoming video games. There’s a number of games I’ve been interested in for a variety of reasons. I’m mainly looking forward to a good MMORPG. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to spend some time exploring, but I haven’t found the right one yet. However, there are a few upcoming ones that have caught my eye:<\/p>\n