Boy was I wrong.

When I said Game Development was going to be a lot of work, it was an understatement! The truth is that I’ve been putting in a lot more hours than necessary for each of the courses. But that’s me. I believe that you need to do things 100% to your ability – especially when it comes to learning. After all, in this case, more is always better!

I learned a lot about 3D gaming, motion inaction/inaction, inertia, and particle physics. I also now have a better-than-basic understanding of character rigging, 3D movement, and gaming AI – areas that I needed improve on for my upcoming business projects.

The courses have also introduced me to Unity’s 2D gaming platform. But let’s be honest, the 2D game development course was really a 4 week crash course in learning everything about making 2D games in Unity. Every second was packed with useful/important information, much of which can easily be overlooked when in a classroom. So it was a blessing to be able to go back and review the lecture videos.

The end result was that after taking just that course alone, I was able to create a 2D game from start to finish in 1 week. It’s a simple game and I put here (http://blaine.leckett.net/ninja) for anyone that would like to try it out. You’ll just need to be patient for about a minute so that it downloads all the assets.

Outside the area of game development, I’ve been actively planning a revamp of our backyard. I attended the Orange County Home Show in Anaheim looking for ideas and have decide to put in artificial turf. Yorba Linda is one of those cities that doesn’t allow real grass. With the advances there have been in tuff technology and that fact that we live in a sever drought environment, I’m quite okay with it! Hopefully next month everything will be done and I’ll have some pictures to show you of the changes.

Just to finish off the month I have to mention that after living in the States for over 15 years, I finally ended up going to the Emergency room at the hospital. With everything happening I ended up not feeling very well due to a heart flutter. I’ve always had these, but this time I decided to take my blood pressure and discovered it was 220/190. Thinking back, it could have been a type of anxiety attack coupled with stress and lack of sleep since February. Nonetheless, I went to Emergency – drove myself.

It’s such a different experience from Canada. Free parking, few car, no one in the emergency waiting room, and all the workers are sitting around texting or watching TV. BTW – I have Kaiser Blue Cross.

But no patients and no wait. What gives?

I got admitted immediately and then I stayed in the hospital for about 2 hours waiting on blood work. The (new?) nurse who took my blood didn’t lock off the tube properly and it squirted everywhere. The doctor came in and said that 220/190 is normal and nothing to be worried about. And then after the blood work was done, I’m released, ushered to a corridor where there is a payment window for paying a $250 fee for my visit.

Wow.
What a different experience for me.

The end result was that I didn’t need to go to emergency and I should just see my doctor (which I didn’t have because of recently switched coverage). That bad news is that the total cost for the visit was in the thousands! I didn’t even know that the doctor charges you separately for their time from the hospital. And then the cost for blood work in unbelievable. My credit card company is very happy, but my bank isn’t. Regardless, that is one experience that I don’t want to do too often, since the cost is equivalent to a nice vacation!