Daniel J Isom

March felt like it was full of just the daily grind into busy weekends. There were after school practices, various medical appointments, a vet appointment, gymnastics, and the first mowing of the season. On the weekends there was cleaning, three game days, the new Pixar movie,  Hoppers , a birthday party, and I Love Smyrna School District day where Ben had a chorus performance. In anticipation for a busy final week of the month/first week of April, I took a rare Friday off to allow us to have a quiet final weekend before we spend this upcoming weekend in Syracuse for Easter. With the weather starting to get nicer, the kids got out on their new scooters and I set up the basketball hoop we got them for Christmas. Earlier in the month I found some time to update my "top 10" board games list which hadn't been done in six and half years. It was a fun exercise and post to write and has spurred me to revisit some old favorites, some of which stayed on the list while others dropp...

It's been six and half years since I posted some version my top 10 all time board games and I figured it was time to do a new update. I have written a top 10 New to Me Games list each year since 2023, but it's been too long since an all time list was written. This is technically the third update from  the original list , which had  one update  in the standard Top 10 format. The  second update  followed the format I'm using for this post, which is 3 categories with 5 game each. The rules from previous lists still apply:      1) I must own the game      2) I must have played the game more than once I've played A LOT of games since the last version of this list, both in number of unique titles and total plays. This is all in thanks to starting a new in-person game group that meets publicly, the kids getting older and interested, and really embracing online play on Board Game Arena . My collection has also grown substantially...

  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...

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,...

  The holidays came and went and while there were some good times, December wasn't exactly the best month of the year. In an effort to not drag down the New Year energy, I'm going to focus on the good stuff in this last wrap up post for 2024. Blah Blog Log I snuck in a couple of year end gaming posts on the last day of the month to actually hit my resolution goal after months of not getting there. November 2024 Wrap-Up - New single month gaming record, my favorite breakfast, and a new snack. Top 10 New to Me Games of 2024 - These were my favorite new to me games in 2024. Deep Dive December: Under Falling Skies - A summary of a solo board game challenge Bored  Board Games Sickness ravaged my household so plays saw an overall dip. I ended up having to cancel all of the in person meetups of our local gaming group. I'm hoping we can pick right up in the new year. For this month's highlight, I'm going to share the game that has my second most logged games of all time:...