I have been taken down by Flu or something similar. For the past month my brain has been at 50% or less of its working capacity. Coughing and spluttering at night has meant while I spent a lot of time in bed trying to sleep I have faced a light level of sleep deprivation almost constantly. It has not been great.

This shook the quality of family time over Christmas. Prior to Christmas I was not able to walk in the hills as my body would not allow it. The start of a new year is a time of high motivation to alter your approach to life but for me it was more get under a blanket with a warm cup of water. Two weeks into the year and I don't feel like the year has really started for me.

Is could be worse. People in my extended family have had much worse situations going on so while I am grumpy, I know I am on the mend and really shouldn't complain too much. I will admit I do feel like I need a holiday.

My positive spin is the time I planned to spend walking was spent at a computer screen where I wrote a small 2D engine and recapped some basic 3D engine theory. Nothing amazing but is was a nice use of my time.

It is all based of the most boring technology I could use. So for the 2D engine that was C++ and OpenGl and the basic 3D engine was again OpenGL and this time Python. The 2D engine may form the basis for a small game I am playing around with.

Perhaps boring is not the right word. I picked that technology would let me focus on the problem rather than the technology being used to solve the problem.

With Game Dev comes the need for graphics. I won't ever be a great artist but I have just started working through the DrawABox lessons. Assuming I keep it up it will be at least months before improve so until then my pixel art and free online graphics will have to suffice.

The start of last year was so successful where I took the approach of change one thing at a time usually at the pace of one change every week or two. I was hoping for a repeat this year where changing something simple every week or two compounded into significant result.

Last year focused on health, this year I will be focusing on trying to get more done by forming healthy balanced productive habits. There will still be some health related changes but not many. None will be applied until I have recovered from the flu/cold.

There's a list of ideas that I am considering and I am still attempting to figure out some metrics to keep me on task. That's all private for now.

Finally the latest The Witcher 3 update is nice except it seems like I can now sprint forever. Wondering from town to town using a combination of sprinting and walk while taking in the scenery was one of the repetitive switch off the brain exercises that I quite enjoyed. Otherwise the update seems great.