Florida: Take Them

I took my six-year-old son to a football game last weekend — not exactly a groundbreaking statement. My wife came along too, mostly to make sure the two of us behaved. It wasn’t his first game, we took him when he was about 4 months old to a November non conference game. We sat in the third deck, put headphones over his ears, and watched him sleep through the cheering and the cannon fire. He’s been back a few times since. Those times were maybe a little crazy. 

You can find any number of people online who, when asked for advice on how to enjoy a sporting event with a small child, will respond with, “Leave the kid at home.”

It’s not bad advice. I think one of the hard parts of parenting is figuring out what the proper ways to blend your time and your kids' time together are, and like most parents my wife and I struggle with that balance. Should they come to this? When should we leave them with the grandparents? Why does it feel like we never have time for ourselves? Are you tired? I’m tired.

Like anything else with small kids (like a trip to the beach or the Happiest Place on Earth), it’s hard to get through a game. It requires some flexibility, some patience, a willingness to say “Yes” to some things and the will power to say “No” to others.

Even now with my son, we spend a lot of time at the concession stand, going to the bathroom, missing exciting plays, while I glance up at the tv in the concourse and ask him if he’s ready to go back to his seat…

This past weekend, in the 3rd quarter, he asked for my phone so he could take pictures and videos (my photo album is now full of quick 1 second videos of him saying “Gig’em” and pictures of him looking wildly into the camera), before he eventually watched The Book of Boba Fett on mute (“I like the part where he comes out of the Sarlacc Pit”).

So no, you’re not going to get the full experience of the game if you take your kid. 

You get something totally different. 

There’s a video on my phone (a little further back than the ones my son took last weekend) of him sitting on the concourse at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, after a day’s worth of driving, a quick trip around the zoo, and singing “Rattlin’ Bog” in a sports bar. He’s eating gummy bears, drinking a blue Powerade, and looks at the camera to say, “I think this is the best day ever.”

The Aggies won that baseball game, then lost the next two in heart breaking fashion, and then a whole whirlwind of shit happened. Enough that could leave a really bad taste in my mouth about that trip. But I have that video, and so I will forever look back on that trip fondly. 

So when you can, take them to games.

And I get that’s easy to say if you just have the one kid who’s older. And to that I’ll say, I’m extremely hopeful to take all three of my kids into a game for the first time this year. I know it will be about six times as hard, that it will end with us making it to halftime (if I’m lucky), and there’s a good chance three-fifths of us do not have a good time, but I want to do it. We took all of them to a tailgate last year, which I realize seems very silly — loading everyone up, driving two and a half hours just to sit in a lawn chair outside and watch a football game. And to that I’ll say: you’ve never been to our tailgates.

Still, it was a lot. But we had fun, and I have a picture of all of us in Aggie gear smiling, and that’s hard to beat.

So my advice: take them. It will be different — worse in some ways, better in others. But you’ll only ever get so many chances to do it. And all you’ll keep from that time are the pictures of them staring wildly into the camera and videos of them saying, “This is the best day ever.”

Show

Speaking of impossible tasks… may I speak to you about our lord and savior Alex Horne?

If you need an escape from multiverses and dark shows about bad people doing good things, or whatever garbage reality shows are dominating screens these days, I’d like to offer up Taskmaster for your viewing pleasure.

The premise is pretty simple: comedians gather together and try to perform a series of simple but outrageous tasks created by “The Taskmaster,” then get graded in front of a live audience who watch them succeed and fail in spectacular fashion.

The 20th season (of the UK version — there are eight other countries with their own versions running) is currently airing, and it’s all available on YouTube. You can start from the beginning, catch up on the latest season before it ends in mid-November, or watch a few fan-favorite seasons to get a good grasp on the show. Seasons 5, 7, 11, and 19 (famous for featuring its first American comedian, Jason Mantzoukas) are some of mine.

The show only becomes more beautiful as you accept and understand a few key points:

• Despite playing the subservient assistant role to the Taskmaster, Greg Davies, “Little” Alex Horne is actually the brains behind the show. This makes every cutting remark from Greg, every self-deprecating joke, and every task that involves contestants putting Alex into some sort of embarrassing or compromising position all the more enjoyable.
• Sometimes, the simpler a task appears to be, the more insane and absurd the responses it draws from contestants. You never know how someone’s brain will respond when put on the clock like these folks are, and even when things seem to go perfectly, there’s always some sort of weird disaster waiting around the bend. (Yes, this does sound an awful lot like an Aggie football season)

• Oftentimes, the banter is more fun than the tasks themselves. As you’d expect when you gather several quick-witted and barely filtered comedians onto a stage and give them a live audience, the moments when contestants are just sitting around debating the merits of their prize task, defending strategy, or commenting on the ridiculousness of the game they’ve committed two weeks of their lives to are some of the best parts of the show.

It’s truly a joy to watch — and I don’t think you can say that about enough shows these days, even the very good ones.

Stats

As I said a couple of weeks ago, you can read Fun With Numbers here. I talk about the Gators and a little bit about what the second half of the season looks like. 

Two quick stats I found interesting:

1. Currently, this is the best passing offense by PPA (Predicted Points Added, see here for a definition) that the Aggies have ever had, at .45, surpassing 2020, which finished at .37. Now, the Aggies have to maintain that success over the second half of the season, but that’s a pretty massive jump from last year, which finished at .21.
2.  The Aggie defense right now is creating havoc at a rate of .207, just behind 2018, 2019, and 2023’s defensive efforts. Currently, the front seven is doing the majority of the work — but if this secondary starts pulling down a few more passes of their own, this defense is going to continue trending toward elite.

Snack

The Gators are traveling from The Swamp to Kyle Field again, so let’s welcome them with a load of Swamp Fries. You see these all over the place now — every Cajun establishment or southeastern BBQ spot has its own variation — and a quick Google search gives way to many different attempts and recipes, some that seem worth trying and others that amount to little more than baking some French fries with bacon and ranch dressing on top. Let’s shoot for something a little more than that.

First, we’ve got to decide on the fry base. Seeing as I don’t have the means or the time to slice up a bunch of potatoes and deep fry them, we’re going with some frozen fries. From there, the options are plentiful, and I can’t lie — I was personally drawn to the idea of some golden brown tater tots. And I think that idea has legs, but tots aren’t fries, and we all need to accept that. From there I landed on waffle fries, based partly on the fact that I just love waffle fries and partly on the fact that I think the structural integrity is key in this situation — like how large, flat tortilla chips are best for nachos. As an engineer, I appreciate a good lattice design and the strength it provides.

Next, we have to decide what we’re topping these fries with. I’ve seen all manner of meat used and suggested — everything from pulled pork to catfish filets. I almost went the BBQ route and heavily considered smoking a chuck roast like a brisket, chopping it up, and throwing it on top. But I think we need to keep these Swamp Fries real swampy and get a little Cajun with it.

I’m borrowing predominantly from this recipe and using some crawfish tails, while also adding a little bit of alligator filet I happened to find in the seafood section of my supermarket. I’m going to add some bell peppers and onions as well, because they make everything better. We’ll pretty much follow the above methodology for the queso and then mix it all together.

Toss the fries in the air fryer, then lay them out on a big cookie sheet, cover in queso and other Cajun elements. I don’t like to post untested recipes here, but I feel great about this one. I’ll let you know how it turns out next week.

BTHO Florida.