In this week's P.O. Box:
An Amsterdam recap
Content roundup
After Dark on tap
Book Club: A new selection
We took April to Amsterdam for a long Memorial Day weekend. It was our most ambitious trip yet as far as travel with a toddler. The last time I visited Amsterdam was in 2007 while I studied abroad. As you can imagine, this one looked a little different…
The redeye wasn’t an issue, but the time change was brutal. April refused to go to bed until 12-12:30am the first two nights as she adjusted away from East Coast time, which had us initially questioning if we made a mistake. But we settled in and it wasn’t an issue the rest of the trip. She crushed the flight back, too. Incredibly grateful how well-tempered she is on flights. We got her a kids camera for this trip and she had a blast with it.
Amsterdam is so walkable. We stayed in the Jordan area and could walk everywhere we wanted in less than 30 minutes. I hit 20k steps every day, which helped offset all of the excess eating.
The parks are amazing. We spent an entire day in Vondelpark—a gorgeous park where everyone bikes and picnics. Most importantly for April, there were seemingly playgrounds around every turn. It’s hard to beat drinking a local beer while assisting a toddler on her all-time favorite activity—zip line.
Their zoo is elite. We went on a Friday and there were zero crowds. Unlike our zoos, which often feel like amusement parks, Artis was like half museum/half botanical gardens. The landscaping was gorgeous and the exhibits were well-designed. The baby elephants and the giraffes were highlights:
The food is eclectic. Amsterdam isn’t a food destination by any means, but there was an eclectic array of options. We had one lame dinner at a bum steakhouse, but otherwise enjoyed really nice meals—a great seafood spot, an Argentinian steakhouse, and a mezze/ hummus bistro. The street food was fun too—apple pie and stroopwafels hit the spot.
Zaanse Schans is very overrated. We capitulated and took a drive out to the historic town of Zaandam outside of the city that has the iconic windmills, but it was an absolute tourist frenzy. We didn’t stay long, but April did look adorable in the wooden clogs.
Everyone is so friendly. We ended up talking to a bunch of locals at various playgrounds—kids are the great equalizer—and they were so helpful with giving us tips and recommendations. On a particularly hot day, one nice lady encouraged us to check out a splash pad at Westerpark. April loved it and I got absolutely destroyed by two little Dutch boys with squirt guns.
My map hack got even easier. I’ve been so busy this spring, that this was the least amount of travel prep I’ve ever been able to do. My general move is to create a google map and individually add a bunch of pins for things to do, places to see, and restaurants to eat at, etc. I did not have time to do this manually, but was able to use Grok & Claude to round-up a ton of the top reccs, spit me out a KML file, and drop them on my map. Then as we walked around, I always had annotated recs at my finger tips. Highly recc’d if you are going to a new city:
A great toddler destination. I don’t think people would naturally think of Amsterdam as a good place to take a kid, but the combination of it being so walkable (we get so much use out of our stroller) and the abundance of parks and playgrounds, made it such an easy city to navigate with a 3.5 year old. My favorite running bit on the trip was April thinking the little euro-cars were “hilarious.”
I posted a bunch more photos on my Instagram if you want to check it out.
Other Content Notes:
The next episode of So You Think You Can Tout—Duo Week—is being finalized as we speak. Should drop with a live premiere on Monday. It’s another banger. Subscribe here.
No Best Ball Breakfast this week, so we decided to rip a couple Best Ball Mania drafts on Off & On The Clock. ICYMI: we covered The Eliminator contest the week before.
The Bash got hijacked by three different So You Think You Can Tout hopefuls—Kevin, who sent in an anti-submission, BBChosen, who got bounced last challenge, and Trevor, who is currently live in the Final 16.
We fired up a LOLz for the first time in a bit and were joined by John aka GoldenPants from the Risk Takers Podcast. Fun convo on what’s going on with prediction markets and why the sharp bettors are all flocking there.
On Ship Chasing, we drafted a BBM team where we each got six selections each and discussed a Josh Allen fade and an incredible CRod quote.
On the Fantasy Life Show (dropping later today), we gave a favorite and a fade for all 18 rounds of drafts right now.
On the Swolecast, I gave Dave a draft challenge where he had to draft eight Titans players but could lower the number for each time he said, “Uncs still got it.”
ADP Chasing tackled the Bucky Irving and Josh Jacobs news and Sam Sherman filled in for Jakob.
In the Fantasy Life Newsletter this week, I reacted to the Bucky/Jacobs situations, sifted through OTA hype, and called my shot on where Stefon Diggs will sign.
Finally, After Dark returns tonight (8pm ET) with two different duos from So You Think You Can Tout—Cupps & Rambus + Emo Cowboy & Nathaniel. Want access to DFS After Dark shows on Saturday & a private DFS Discord channel? Become a Best Ball Value Hounds member on Youtube.
👮 Book #4 for June (0%): London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the bestselling, prizewinning author of Say Nothing and Empire of Pain, a spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface.
Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain was one of the Book Club’s favorite selections, so let’s give his new one a shot. I
🕷 Book #3 for April (COMPLETED): Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
This was a great read, thanks for the reccs guys. It feels rare to read a sci-fi book that is as optimistic of the future as this one. I hardly cared about the human sections in the book, but I feel like that might have been by design? The human survival was way less interesting than the more impressive evolution of the spiders.
FWIW, I’m told there is a sequel (Children of Ruin). I could see looping back to that at some point.
💀 Book #2 for February (COMPLETED): Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
🧱 Book #1 for January (COMPLETED): The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami.
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