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 celebrated by seeing the newest Toy Story movie, dinner at McDonald's, and blizzards from DQ. We did his birthday experience a few months back but couldn't let the day go by without a little something extra. As a collective birthday present for the kids, my brother and his girlfriend invited us to their place for ice cream cake, but not before having a great brunch at JAM Eateries and then a visit to Clark's Elioak Farm. The latter is a petting farm and place of nightmare fuel. If you've ever been, you know what I'm talking about. There were a lot of laughs and Christine got to hold a baby goat. It was a great day spending time with them and was the first of many busy summer weekends.

From the work side, the month started off hot with three conferences in 4 business days, including the Rural Health Conference which is part of the work that my section does and my office sponsors. After that, things slowed down as the summer begins and our fiscal system goes down for the end of the fiscal year close out and new fiscal year start up. 

Blah Blog Log

June was too busy for additional posts, so it was just the one.

• May 2026 Wrap-Up - crazy amount of gaming, disc golf, and a book about not being a dick.

Bored Board Games

Another month of less AoE time meant more gaming time and while it wasn't nearly as much last month, I still had more than 200 plays in June. There were 224 plays across 23 games, with only a couple of them being new to me. 

• The 100 Games 100 Plays List gained two new members, with both Point Salad and Qwinto breaking the 100 plays mark. This brings me up to 32 with a few lingering in the 80s that could join soon.
• I updated a listed my for sale games list and was able to sell five games to one person after sharing it in a couple of other FB groups. There's still about 30 games available and another pass through will be needed because I'm still out of space even with those pulled from the shelves. 
• I received American Psycho: A Killer Game as a gift, which is a trick taking game based on of my favorite movies. I'm excited to give that a go and see if it's worthy of a spot on the shelves.

Lucky Numbers is a light and casual game I've been enjoying on BGA that is also this month's highlighted game. Right off the top, this title from 2012 isn't going to knock yours socks off, but it is a fun puzzle style abstract game that I like to play when I'm in the mood to play something quick that doesn't require a lot of mental brain power. The object of the game is to fill your 4x4 grid with numbers ascending in value both from left to right but also from top to bottom. 

From BGG:"On a turn, you take either a face-down tile from the pile or a face-up tile from the table. You can (1) place this tile in an empty space in your grid, (2) swap this tile for a tile already in the grid, or (3) discard this tile face-up on the table. However, all tiles in your grid must obey one rule at all times: A tile must be higher in value that any tile directly above it or to its immediate left and lower in value that any tile directly below it or to its immediate right. Whoever first fills their grid with sixteen tiles wins."

There are a couple of variants that change the initial setup rules and one that lets you draw another tile if you play a number already in your grid diagonally adjacent to the matching number. I prefer to play with both of these on because it makes the game a little more interesting and strategic. You can also play a single game or tournament style where the number of rounds is equal to the number of players. Winners get 2 points and losers lose points equal to the number of empty spaces on their board. The player with the highest total combined is declared the winner. I also like this version because it mitigates the randomness some. All in all it's an enjoyable game from the designer of one of my favorite card games, Coloretto.

Enjoyable Eats

As mentioned in the start of this post, we were invited to brunch at JAM Eateries and I've been excited to share about it here because it was really great. The place is HUGE and it was absolutely buzzing when we got there. We checked in on the app so we basically walked right in, despite a lot of people waiting outside. As you enter there is a case of baked goods that looked amazing. I can't wait to go back to try some of them. The menu has so many great options but if I have the option for breakfast food, I'm doing that 100% of the time. 

I ended up going with The Ultimate Breakfast Sandwich which is an oversized croissant, bacon jam, crispy bacon, over easy egg, cheddar cheese & served with home fries. I'm a sucker for croissants so even though they had over 10 benedicts I wanted to try, I really wanted a pastry so I kind of split the difference and went with this great sandwich. It was a bit of a mess to eat as the croissant fell apart in the best way. If I lived in Columbia, MD and this place was open for dinner too, I could literally eat there everyday.

I'm Watching 👀

We're always on the lookout for sitcoms to watch before bed and end up grinding through them fairly quickly. We recently finished Brooklyn Nine-Nine which was right up there with some of my favorites of all time. With that coming to an end we needed a replacement and started watching the mockumentary sitcom, St. Denis Medical. The series follows the overworked doctors and nurses working at an underfunded Oregon hospital. It's shot in the style of The Office and/or Parks and Recreation where the characters sometimes talk directly to you the viewer. I love this type of show which is part of the reason it hooked me so quickly. It was created by a couple of producers that also did Superstore which I wrote about back in October. We're excited that it's getting a third season as we are moving towards season two soon.

Reading Ramble

I somewhat begrudgingly finished Don't Be A Dick: Change Yourself, Change Your World. While there were a few lessons to learn and techniques that I think everyone would benefit from trying, I wouldn't classify myself as a Dick. At least not as the way the author portrayed many of the people, mostly clients of his, throughout the book. The stories weren't even extreme cases, it was a lot of normal everyday stuff but often resulted in ended relationships and/or trauma for everyone involved. The "horrible" thing that I did that resulted in me being gifted the book is so far from that, but as I said last month, the buyer was going for shock value and didn't stop to consider my intentions. 

Moving on from that, now I can share a little about something I was actually interested in reading. I picked up Severance while browsing our somewhat newly opened Books-A-Million store in Dover. I had received a gift card from my dad for Christmas and we stopped by as a family to doing some shopping recently. After being unable to find a couple of books on my wish list, I Googled top dystopian and apocalyptic novels and this one from 2018 was mentioned quite often on various forums. I'm only a few chapters in but really like the writing style and find myself wanting to pick it up whenever I have free time.

From Wikipedia: "It follows Candace Chen, an unfulfilled Bible product coordinator, before and after an incurable infection slowly obliterates global civilization. Severance explores themes of nostalgia, modern office culture, monotony, and intimate relationships. It takes place in an alternate history of the United States up to the end of 2011, before and during a pandemic of the Shen Fever, a fictional fungal infection caused by Sheniodioides originating in Shenzhen, China. People infected with Shen Fever repeat old routines compulsively, without consciousness and until death. There is no cure for the fever, and its spread eventually leads to total societal collapse in the United States. Some people are inexplicably immune to the fever and try to survive during the slow apocalypse." 

Sweet Chain Music

For Father's Day, the kids and I spent a couple hours at the disc golf course at Dover Park. It's an older 9 hole course that I have played twice before solo. The holes are mostly on the shorter side and with it only being 9 holes, it's something the kids can get through without much complaining even with it being fairly warm out. It was the first time I had all three of them playing with me at the same time, which definitely adds to the overall playing time. 

We all had fun and James even had a par on a hole that I bogeyed on. Since then, we've had a few putting practice sessions in the back yard that they all like to participate in. Because they all seem to be enjoying it, I've decided to put a little more capital into the hobby by ordering a few more discs for me, some towels to clean the discs during play, and a new bag to hold everything. We're all looking forward to playing at least a couple of courses while traveling this month.

Whatcha Snackin?

On the last day of the month, I cracked open a bag of one of my favorite chips...Hint of Lime Tortilla Chips, specifically Clancy's brand which is an Aldi line of snacks. I had grilled some marinated chicken to make quesadillas and made Mexican-style yellow rice, but our plates needed a little something extra and these worked perfectly. I remember when Tostitos came out with the original version, now 30 years ago (you should have seen my face when I Googled the debut date...I'm so old).

The Aldi version has a punchier flavor that is a tad sweeter than the name brand and the chips are crunchier. For less than half the price, it's an absolute no brainer to grab these instead. Christine and I both love them and exposed the kids to them for the first time. James thought they were okay but too sweet for his liking, but Grace loved them so much that she kept snacking from the bag until I finished eating and then had a small bowl of them with her bed snack. If you like the original, you'll love these.

Wrap It Up

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