May 2025 Wrap-Up

May was over in the blink of an eye, fueled by a very busy work schedule and the kids having a lot of year end events at school. It seemed like we had something going on almost every night and weekend day throughout the month. Two birthdays (Grace and Christine) and Mother's Day, had us out and about doing some really fun things like going to the Philadelphia Zoo, a cat cafe, and a trip to the movies. Ben and Grace had performances for chorus, band, a drama club play, and Spanish Immersion Night. I also participated in a guy's weekend with three of my friends at a Castle House in the Poconos. Aside from that, I played a lot of games both online and in person while continuing to read issues of Simplicity Magazine for my New Year's Resolution. I'm very much looking forward to the end of the school year and all of the travel plans we have this summer.

Blah Blog Log

Just the single wrap-up post in May, but I hope to have at least one additional post this month.

• April 2025 Wrap-Up - Turned 40, played a game I've wanted since joining the hobby, and a new Reese's snack that is a version of an old favorite.

Bored Board Games

Kept the streak of over 100 plays going for the fifth straight month to start the year with 178 plays across 30 games. In those plays, I added Hive and Lost Cities to my 100 Games 100 Plays list. I also introduced the boys to one of my favorite traditional card games, Palace. It's a card shedding game, think Uno, where you're trying to get rid of all of your cards. The thing that sets this game apart is each player's "palace" which is made up of three face down cards with three face up cards on top of the face down cards. Once the deck and a player's hand has been exhausted, they can begin trying to use their palace cards. The first player to clear their palace is declared the winner. Palace is one of the 17 games, at the time of this post, that's made the 100 Games 100 Plays list. While I really enjoy that simple card game, I wanted to highlight a game I got to play for just the second time and not since 2019. This month's highlighted game is:

Heaven & Ale - Designed by my favorite designer, Michael Kiesling, this was my favorite game of those published in 2017. Which is crazy because his incredibly popular and much more well known title, Azul, also came out that year. He also had Riverboat and Reworld published in 2017 as well. I had the former and thought it was good but ended up trading it and the latter never got added to the collection. I just love the way he approaches designs and there's something about them just makes my brain click in the best ways.

In Heaven & Ale, players have been assigned to lead an ancient monastery and its brewery. Over a series of rounds, players move their meeple around the board to collect resources and abilities to harvest ingredients to sell and upgrade your cloister's garden, while also advancing your brew master to score the most possible points by the end of the game. On a player's turn, they can move their piece as many spaces as they want until the stop and collect what's on that space. Since resources randomly get added to the board each round, it means that major jumps will likely occur to secure spots a player really needs. However, that means giving up other resources and opportunities to score. There are 12 different open scoring objectives that players will race towards and collect by stopping on the two barrel spots on the board. More points are awarded to the first player who completes them and then stop on one of those spaces. The next player to do the same gets less points and anyone else who is playing will be out of luck once the two barrels of each objective have been taken. 

The game is incredibly tight, both with the money used to pay for placing resources and in just how many turns you'll get throughout the game. A player's strategy needs to be flexible and have a little bit of luck, as it's often the case that the spot you want to go next gets taken by another player. Jumping too far ahead will reduce your options and could have you taking less turns that other players, while taking it slow and just grabbing what others left behind may or may not work out in the end. I really regret not getting this to the table more often. It's one of the more complex games that I own, but it's pretty straightforward to teach. What makes it more difficult to play than other games is the puzzly aspect and the number of objectives you need to plan to complete. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes Euro style games with colorful are and a really unique scoring method.

Enjoyable Eats

There's a restaurant space in Smyrna that has housed a few different places over our years of living here, all of which were sports bars. Originally it was Sportzone, a place we really liked because of their crabby fries and the fact that they had my favorite sandwich on the menu, the Beef on Weck. Then it was The Green Stinger, an established business south of Dover that wanted a second location. We never went there and they closed after some odd situations with the people in town. Now it's called EndZone Bar and Grill. It opened in 2023, but we just stopped there for the first time a couple weeks ago.

The interior really isn't significantly different than when it was originally Sportzone, aside from some new memorabilia on the walls. The menu follows typical sports bar fare, a lot of fried things, sandwiches, and a few entrees. Not expecting much, we were pleasantly surprised at the quality and taste of the lemon pepper wings and waffle fries. I also had a cheesesteak that was pretty good but also much larger than I could eat in a single sitting. While we were there the new owner, who just purchased the place three weeks prior, stopped by our table and told us about his vision for the restaurant moving forward. I guess the place doesn't have a great reputation right now because of situations and events that have happened there involving fights and other altercations during large events that had been thrown there. A new menu and a more family friendly environment is the goal, we told the waitress that if they keep the wings and seasoned fries the same, we'd definitely be back.

I'm Watching 👀

The Handmaid's Tale also debuted last month with The Last of Us, so I saved it for this month because it's also still going on each week. We've loved the show since the beginning and I feel like this final season has not been a let down. Some shows, even those that only go on for six seasons or less sort of peter out towards the end. While we're sad to see it come to an end, the uptick in action and interesting storylines from a couple of seasons ago has been enjoyable and a satisfying way to end the show. With only a couple of episodes left we're already looking forward to the prequel series, The Testaments, when it comes out.

Normally I only cover one thing each month but I wanted to give a special shoutout to a surprisingly touching movie that we saw in theaters on Christine's birthday with the kids. I enjoy a Marvel movie, but haven't kept up with them since the explosion of the Avengers offshoots. I knew nothing about Thunderbolts* going in aside from what I could gather from a movie poster. It looked like a rag tag group of heroes that didn't have some of the crazy abilities or powers of the Avengers, which turned out to be mostly correct. What I did not expect was a character and a specific scene that hit me at my core. Saying any more would be too close to spoilers, let's just say I wasn't expecting to have tears while watching a Marvel movie. 

 Resolutions Update

I decided on a single resolution for this year: Read all 35 issues of Simplify Magazine. Which means I'll need to read 3 issues each month. Each issue is about 75 - 100 pages long and is comprised of short essays on whatever that issue's topic is. 

• Goal Progress - 15 out of 35

Was able to stay on track and read about Work and Play, Habits, and Positivity. There's a lot of good information in each issue, but some of it is starting to feel repetitive given the focus is around a central theme of minimalism. I think there is only so much one can say about minimalism itself, it's finding a different way of saying similar things that might help it click for an individual. Regardless, I'm enjoying the process of reading through the issues each month.

Whatcha Snackin?

During the last weekend of the month, I was in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania with three of my childhood friends who I talk to basically everyday in a group chat. We stayed at Pocono Castle, an AirBnB that's a house themed like a castle. You have to check out the listing to see how amazing it is. One of them makes homemade jerky when he normally goes on a trip the outer banks each year. I've had it before when he's stopped at our house in Delaware on the way down for the night. Between all the activities we did and odd for me meal times, being able to have a few pieces here and there throughout the weekend was really great. He made batched of honey BBQ and Teriyaki and it makes we wonder why I've never made my own. I may have to bust out the dehydrator when I get home.

Wrap It Up

Please comment below with any thoughts or comments on anything I've covered. Thanks for reading!