Daniel J Isom

For the fifth straight year, I participated in the Solotober Challenge where I attempt to have 31 solo game plays in the month of October. This year work was busier than ever and I found myself logging more of my solo plays from online platforms like BoardGameArena than I would have preferred. A lot of it came from a lack of time to get something set up, played, and broken down. But the real killer was just how exhausted I was by the end of the day. After making dinner, cleaning up, and taking a walk, I didn't have the time or energy most nights to play a physical copy unless it was a simpler game. Simpler games were definitely the theme for this year and helped me once again hit my goal of playing a different game every single day. I didn't get any new to me games in which was very disappointing. On the positive side, I found out a favorite multiplayer game of mine, Fromage , which made the Top 10 New to Me Games of 2025 , has a solo variant and is on BGA so I got to try tha...

    Every year I forget how exhausting the month of September is for us or maybe this one was just particularly busy. Christine and I started the month of right by seeing Breaking Benjamin , Chevelle , and Starset live in concert and what a show that was. The kids then started school after Labor day on the latest possible date, giving them just a little bit more summer than usual. After that, we had plans pretty much every weekend day on top of trying to get back into our routines. Just to pile on, there were some various doctor's appointments and school events that ate into our time even more. Then there were a handful of work events including the 2026 Delaware Healthcare Workforce Summit , of which I was co-chair of the planning committee for and is our biggest event of the year. I did enjoy the somewhat rapid descent into fall weather, in part from the nor' easter that ate up the beaches throughout the mid-Atlantic and northeastern seaboard. Of course the day I am writing ...

  The final month of summer included one final vacation, a work trip, and our youngest's birthday. James turned nine during the second weekend of the month and his chosen birthday experience was to go to Coastal Wilds in Frankford, Delaware to see the animals and do the capybara (his favorite animal) experience. It's a small zoo that's home to over 35 species of animals including otters, two-toed sloths, red kangaroos and more. Then I had my annual work trip to Rockville, MD to learn and collaborate with Primary Care Office workers from other states. It was only two (long) days this year so I didn't get to do much in Rockville other than the conference unfortunately. Following that work trip, I took a week off and we spent four days in Ocean City, MD. The kids had never been and Christine and I hadn't since our honeymoon. We stayed ocean front at  The Commander Hotel & Suites  and spent each day swimming, relaxing on the beach, and walking the boardwalk. Before...

I barely worked in July which made it a really great month. We ended up taking two weeklong vacations, one back to visit family and friends in Syracuse and the other to visit family in North Carolina. When I was at work, I was grinding through provider validation, among regular work duties, ahead of my annual conference in Rockville later this month.  Some of the highlights of our Syracuse trip were visiting  Little Ray's Nature Center , getting to play disc golf with my friends, and seeing  Minions & Monsters  in theaters. In between our trips, Christine, Grace, and I went and saw  The Odyssey . This year's North Carolina trip started with some car trouble right when we arrived but despite the cost, it didn't really affect the trip. We got a lot of sun on the beach and at the pools, did our annual ice cream competition each night, and just had a great time relaxing. Blah Blog Log I was barely home in July so there was just the one post. June 2026 Wrap-Up -...

June is one of my favorite months of the year, despite the temperatures rising to uncomfortable levels. It marks the end of another school year and enters us into a time of vacations and a laid back schedule. To start the month there are always a few end of the year ceremonies for the kids, which for this year included two "Fly Away" ceremonies for the boys since they'll be in new schools next year. Both received awards and we couldn't be more proud of them. June is also our wedding anniversary month, bringing us to 16 years married this year. We didn't plan a big trip for this one but we did spend the night in Baltimore to have dinner and see Daniel Tosh perform. There was also Father's Day which, if you know me, I don't care about because it's a made up holiday. However, the kids an I went disc golfing together so that was a nice way to spend a few hours together.  If all of that wasn't enough, it's also Ben's birthday month so we celebr...

Boy was May an insanely busy month. It started with a trip to my mom's house for a meal and time with family before driving directly to Philadelphia to stay the night near King of Prussia Mall, where we went to Netflix House for Grace's birthday experience. Then we celebrated Grace's birthday a couple days later, followed by Ben's Spanish Immersion night. That led into a movie and dinner on Mother's day and the first of three straight weeks of concerts/performances on our normal date nights. The kids and Christine went to a K-POP Demon Hunter's dance party in Wilmington, Christine had her birthday, and the Duck Creek Library kicked off their summer reading challenge. We had to split the family up one night because Ben had his drama club performance as the Cowardly Lion in the The Wizard of OZ and Grace had her band concert at the same time. If all if that wasn't enough, there was still the kids' gymnastics classes each week, a couple of game days for me...

  April was...something. There were some really high highs and at least one very low low. Getting the depressing part out of the way, my birthday was...not great. One could argue quite terrible and possibly the worst birthday yet. It has nothing to do with getting older because that doesn't bother me, something I've often written about on here. There were just a series of events that ruined it and the fact that one is "supposed" to have a "good" birthday made it worse. Aside from that, I had a lot going on in all aspects of my life in April and had some really great experiences that made up for how poorly "my" day went. We started the month with a nice trip back to Syracuse for Easter to visit family. The day after we got back was the bad day, but then a couple days later Christine and I saw Alton Brown's live show at The Grand in Wilmington after going back to Farmer & the Cow for dinner. It was an amazing night that I could just go on a...