June 2025 Wrap-Up

June was by far the busiest month in years. We had something going on every single weekend, the school year ended, and there was so much going on at work. The end of my guys' weekend at the Castle House started the month, proceeded by a solo trip back to Syracuse for a friend's wedding, then Christine and I spent a nice weekend in Lancaster, PA, we went to Captain Kidd's Pirate Day at the Kalmar Nyckel Museum, then spent a week at the beach in Rehoboth, and finished the month at the Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Festival with the kids, my mom, my brother, and his girlfriend. I'm only back to work three days this week before going to NY for the 4th, but we'll save that for next month's post. There were multiple work conferences in June, one being our Rural Health Conference that saw a record number of attendees. Summer is supposed to be a little bit slower all around but this one is shaping up to be the busiest yet.

Blah Blog Log

Just the single wrap-up post in June, maybe I'll get motivated to write more this month.

• May 2025 Wrap-Up - A trip to a Castle, played a game I love that sadly sat on my shelf for years, and watched some good stuff on the big and small screens.

Bored Board Games

Six straight months with over 100 plays has brought me to nearly 1000 plays for the year, which puts me ahead of last year's total of 892. In June, I played 22 games a total of 170 times. The Guild of Merchant Explorers made the 100 Games 100 Plays List, and there are three with 90 or more that could make it very soon. I got to wondering why I have so many plays this year and the biggest reason is taking a step back from watching AOE II content. I still watch quite a bit, but mostly just a couple of streamers when they are on, instead of watching sets from tournaments which are pretty much every weekend throughout the year. Sometimes I'll have a stream up on my phone to listen to and while I play a game at the same time with the picture in picture feature. All I know is that I'm getting to enjoy both of my major hobbies right now. This month's featured game is one that I played a bunch online and three times in person:

Verdant - Back in September of 2023, I played Verdant for the first time and then again one month later as a part of my Solotober Challenge. It then sat on my shelf until April of 2024 before seeing the table again. It's not that I didn't like the game, it's just that I had so many I wanted to share at our game meetups. Still, it sat on my shelf for over year since then. However, in June this year the game was added to BGA and I got hooked. As you can see in the image above, I had 33 plays in June. I was having so much fun playing online that I decided to dust it off and bring it back to our game meetup. I actually played two games solo because nobody else showed up for one of the dates, but I was able to teach it to someone who hadn't played it before at the next one.

The game feels similar to other Flatout Games titles such as Calico and Cascadia, two of my favorites and the reason why their releases are pretty much instabacks when they hit crowdfunding on Kickstarter and/or Gamefound. From BGG: "Verdant is a puzzly spatial card game for 1 to 5 players. You take on the role of a houseplant enthusiast trying to create the coziest interior space by collecting and arranging houseplants and other objects within your home. Each turn, you select an adjacent pair of a card and token, then use those items to build an ever-expanding tableau of cards that represents your home. You need to keep various objectives in mind as you attempt to increase plant verdancy by making spatial matches and using item tokens to take various nurture actions. You can also build your "green thumb" skills, which allows you to take additional actions to care for your plants and create the coziest space!"

It's not a game to take really seriously and is rather calming to play. While I'm always looking to maximize my points (and also trying to stick it a bit to my opponents), I don't find myself stressing or trying to be aggressive with my play while playing Verdant. I like the puzzle of putting like colored rooms, plants, and tokens together and the interesting decisions that end up getting made based on what comes up on the board to draft. Being able to manipulate some of the cards and tokens with the green thumbs and balancing matching objects of like color versus a variety of objects to maximize score are the hooks that keep my coming back. Because of its presence on BGA, I think this will reach the 100 play count for sure. Adding end game scoring cards as a part of the advanced variant keeps the game fresh from play to play.

Enjoyable Eats

I mentioned last month in this segment that I missed the restaurant that had a Beef on Weck sandwich on the menu in Smyrna. Well during our beach trip, we ate at one of our favorite restaurants in Delaware, Dogfish Head Brewings and Eats, and they have one on the menu that comes with horseradish that punches you square in the nose. I can't help but order it each time we go because I love to eat this simple but super flavorful sandwich whenever I get a chance.

I'm shocked that I haven't written about Dogfish Head more on this blog, it's only mention was on my Top 10 Favorite Unusual Pizza Toppings post after having asparagus on a pizza from them before they tore the old restaurant building down and built the gorgeous one that stands in its place now. I'm not a drinker, so their brews aren't why I go but their food is fantastic. The kids like their homemade mac and cheese and everything else we've ever ordered from there has been great. During this trip we also got the homemade pretzel bites that comes with honey mustard and 90 Minute IPA cheddar sauce for dipping.

I'm Watching 👀

During one of the unbearably hot days while down at the beach, we decided to retreat inside instead of melting outside by going to the movies. The kids really wanted to see the new Pixar movie Elio, which I knew nothing about until minutes before it started. Christine and I have always watched the new Pixar movies, even prior to having kids. Now we just have a convenient excuse to go to the theater whenever a new one comes out. It's an interesting story about a boy who is searching for who he is after tragedy strikes (Disney's bloodlust for parents cannot be stopped), mixed in are various alien lifeforms and some sappy music and you've got yourself something that's entertaining. It's got a decent Rotten Tomato score, but the box office results have been sluggish. It's a shame because it's a pretty good movie, not the best Pixar release by any means, but it was cute and there were some characters I really liked.

 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

I completely forgot about this goal in June. I did finally finish the novella Day of Wrath that I started over two years ago. I brought it on our beach trip and was able to finish it while the kids went swimming each night. I'll have to find time to double up this month to get back on track.

Whatcha Snackin?

While Christine and I were in Lancaster, we visited The Snack Stand which is a specialty snack and candy shop that carries international snacks from all over. We grabbed some various candies and a few bags of chips that we've mostly made out way through at this point. I cannot recommend the Fried Crab Flavor Lay's or the Black Truffle Flavor Torres, both were over the top in their own ways and weren't that enjoyable. However, the Iberian Ham Flavor Torres potato chips were very tasty. They had a subtle pork flavor and were wonderfully crunchy. Would I pay $4 again for a tiny bag? Probably not, but if I'm ever in Spain and see them on the shelf, I'd be happy to have them again.

Wrap It Up

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