Great job! You are going about it in the right way by practicing with a purpose and hopefully starting off with proper fundamentals, those alone are huge. Many of us here started out the hard way, learning on our own which can take a lot longer and be frustrating in the process.
Just because your friend played 20 years or so does not make him a great player of course. Depends on how much time he's actually played the game. Nice job on the B&R too. I don't remember my first one but that's great for you! Enjoy this awesome game and never take it too serious. When I started learning to stop sweating the misses and bad rolls, my game really took off as did my enjoyment in playing!
Peace!