Daniel J Isom

What a month to start off the year. I was still fighting off the flu or some sort of respiratory virus that kicked my ass during the first week. Through that I had two new employees start and I had a lot of grant related work to do. Thankfully I was back to 100% before we took the kids on their first trip to Disney World over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend. I could probably write an entire post covering all the details but to sum it up:  We flew direct using Avelo Airlines out of Wilmington, which was the least painful airport experience ever. It also saved us a bunch of money both in airfare and parking. With the amazing help of my sister-in-law, we visited all four parks in 3 days. Ben and I did miss half of the day at Magic Kingdom because he was sick, but he bounced back for our last day at Animal Kingdom and Epcot. Rode a bunch of rides thanks to lighting lane passes. Grace and Ben are thrill ride seekers with Tron , Tower of Terror ,  Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic...

  December had spurts of slowing down a little and then lots all at once. We returned from Thanksgiving on the last day of November, so we went from that straight into our regular routine the next day. The first week was a little slow but then at least one person had something going on every single day during the second week. We got to watch Grace at her winter band concert and Ben at his winter chorus concert. The following week was much more chill. It started with some snow on Sunday that I used as the perfect day to do chili and cornbread for dinner. Then it was all about getting ready for the onslaught of people coming during Christmas week. That meant baking cookies, planning meals, and straightening up the house. It was nice having people in and out of the house, but everything just felt a bit off this year. If I had to guess why, it was due to scheduling changes so we didn't follow our traditional routine. As the month came to a close, I got sick with some non-flu, non-covid...

This is the third annual version of this list and I really looked forward to writing it as I reflected on the last year of board gaming. If you're interested, you can go back and check out the previous two lists for 2024 and 2023 . Without any intention, I set a new personal best for plays with an astounding 1877 plays across 134 games. Last year I had set a goal of 600 plays across 150 games and ended with 892 play across 162 games. So while I played a smaller number of unique games, largely impacted by my 100 Games 100 Plays Project , I still had many new to me games to pick from for this list. As with previous years, most (possibly all) of the games on this list were not published in 2025. After my most successful year of gaming, these were my favorite New to Me Games of 2025: #10 - Sheriff of Nottingham I'm not typically a fan of party games, but if bluffing is involved then there's a good chance I'll find some enjoyment in it. In Sheriff of Nottingham, players tak...

  Back again this year with another report on participating in the Deep Dive December Solo Challenge. In previous years, I've played Lost Ruins of Arnak , Scythe , and  Under Falling Skies . This year I selected Hadrian's Wall, a flip and write game about building a coast to coast wall in Britannia at the behest of Roman Emperor Hadrian Augustus to keep the savage Picts from attacking. I pledged to play the game 12 times in the month of December and had a great time doing so. After receiving the game last Christmas, I felt bad for neglecting it for so long. Thankfully, it turned out to be the perfect candidate for this challenge. I enjoyed it so much that it landed at #4 on my Top 10 New to Me Games of 2025 list. Instead of attempting the campaign to start, which is longer than 12 games, I decided to just increase the difficulty as I went along. Starting on easy difficulty I did amazing in my first game, completing most the the left sheet that contains the wall. I ended w...

  For the forth straight year, I participated in the Solotober Challenge where I attempt to have 31 solo game plays in the month of October. Piggybacking off of last year's added challenge of also playing a different game everyday, I pledged to do that again and was successful. Before I get any further in this post, I know this is really late but I originally wasn't even going to write this post in the first place so give me some credit. There are a multitude of reasons for that but the main one being I played the vast majority of the games on BGA instead of in person because of just lack of time mostly. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I prefer to play physical copies of games for these challenges. Anywho, I got through it in what has become my busiest work month of the year. As usual, I did enjoy finding time to sit down and play something by myself. What I did not enjoy was how many times I lost playing against the AI in Mandala . It's not the best solo i...

   October work and family things spilled into November, making it feel like it was over in the blink of an eye. We kept busy doctor's appointments, game days, another Fall Festival, seeing the new Wicked movie in theaters, and traveling back to Syracuse for Thanksgiving. On the work side, I'm still trying to hire a couple of people after some disastrous interviews and happenings. I also started completing some end of they year deadlines so I can relax when my week off around Christmas comes around.  One disappointing note was that I didn't find time to make cookies in November. So, the Cookie of the Month segment will be missing in this post, but it'll come roaring back next month with a full report of the Christmas Cookies I make. A counter bright spot was me playing a crazy amount of games and possibly finding a new favorite filler game that might even push into my top 10. Blah Blog Log Just the one post for November. October 2025 Wrap-Up  - A return to 100+ game ...

  This post marks two years of posting these monthly wrap-ups. I look forward to coming up with content for each of the segments and trying out new ones (including one this month!). As I've written previously, this blog has taken over for my social media as the place where I share what is going on in my life. I'm still on Facebook, X, and Bluesky, but I use them all for very different purposes. This October was just as busy as last year's, which I stated was one of the busiest month's I've had in years. Work was very busy doing a lot of outreach events, including two all day Saturday events and two late night events in Kent and Sussex County that we added this year. I also moved buildings from Dover to Smyrna into the new Delaware Public Health Lab building. I'm enjoying my new space, even if it's lonely without any of my team here. I'll be hiring for two positions that will join me in our new location over the next couple of months. On the family side, ...