🔥Warming A House 9/7/25

Rylee recently got an espresso machine, and while it’s been great to finally make proper lattes and cappuccinos at home, I think her favorite part of having it is getting to see my attempts at creating latte art. There have been a latte of them, but here are some of my favorites:

In case you were wondering, this was all self-taught. I could have been a barista in another life. Anyway, let’s find out What’s Up With Will...

I am finally done with syllabus week and on to the real nitty-gritty. Let me tell you, there is a lot of reading in graduate school. A lot. I think this past week I read around 100 pages. I have been doing a lot of highlighting as well, but then when I look back at the text, I have practically highlighted the entire reading. I have some things to figure out for sure…

My first adventure of the week was to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens.

UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens is the third largest botanical garden in the US by the number of species, with over 10,000 different types of plants from Asia, Africa, and California. That is a lot of plants! Some of the other highlights include the Redwood Grove, the Japanese pool, the rose garden, and the carnivorous plants greenhouse. Side note: carnivorous plants are some of the weirdest-looking plants I have ever seen.

I was having a great time until I walked up to a sign warning that rattlesnakes had been spotted in the area, and quickly ran back home. I can handle plants that might bite me, but snakes are one step too far.

Also in Berkeley, I made a stop at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive or otherwise known as BAMPFA.

BAMPFA had two exhibits on display at the time. The first, Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California, showcased how quilts migrated and evolved alongside African Americans during the Second Great Migration in the 1940s-1970s. You get to see quilt-making as an art form that spans generations, encompasses relationships, memories, and the identities of all those connected with the quilts.

The second exhibit was Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, a retrospective of Lee ShinJa, one of Korea’s foremost fiber artists. It highlights works from her early career when fiber art was dismissed as a domestic labor, or her later works that continued to shift perceptions of fiber as a serious medium.

I think both of the exhibits do a great job of challenging the perception of art, arguing that both fiber and quilting, both generally seen as domestic crafts, should be recognized as fine art.

And on the way back home, I found that the Yard was giving out free cookie dough pops for their grand opening. I think the going rate of $20 for a milkshake is a little egregious, even for California, but I have no qualms with a free piece of cookie dough.

For tonight’s date night, we were on Island Time. At Pacific Catch, a Mexican-Asian fusion restaurant with a focus on seafood, your first Mai Tai is discounted if you wear a Hawaiian shirt. We chowed down on sushi in between bites of a spicy shrimp ceviche. Pacific Catch even had live music, which our table was located right behind, so effectively we had backstage passes. I will say, though, that we almost got into a tussle at the end. Our waiter, for some reason, questioned whether our shirts were Hawaiian enough for the cheaper Mai Tais.

I feel like oftentimes housewarming parties don’t get followed through on, which is a shame because I want to see people’s new places. I especially didn’t want that to be the case for our new place, since we finally have a space that is better for hosting. Granted, it was almost 2 months after we moved, but as the saying goes, “better late than never!” We were excited to have people come over to check out our new space.

However, since we haven’t thrown a party for Rylee’s birthday yet, this would be a Housewarming x Rylee’s 24th Birthday Party so that everyone would come over to check out our new space and have some cake.

However, after planning the party, we realized that our housewarming party also coincided with a Georgia Tech football game, so this would actually be a Housewarming x Rylee’s 24th Birthday Party x GT Football Watch Party where everyone would come over to check out our new space, have some cake, and cheer on Georgia Tech.

I am thankful for everyone who came to celebrate Rylee’s birthday and made the house infinitely warmer by their presence. I am also thankful that Georgia Tech clobbered Gardner-Webb 59 to 12. Georgia Tech hasn’t historically been good at football, but in the past year or so, we have become a football school. I also wanted to shout out Rylee for her excellent cheese board. As she says, “If we are going to host a party, you know there is going to be charcuterie”.

Walnut Creek has quite a fine arts scene with the Center Repertory Company. It is one of the oldest theater groups in the area, and having just started its 58th season, we wrapped up the week by attending the first preview of the play Indecent.

I have never heard of Indecent before, but its plot essentially covers the controversy of the 1923 play, God of Vengeance, and looks at censorship of art and media in the US. I was incredibly impressed with the play and the actors, and the performance had both Rylee and I crying at the end. If it was this good during the previews, I can only imagine it when when it officially starts its theatrical run.

I really enjoy watching speedruns of video games. I think it is cool to see how players manipulate bugs and glitches in the game to finish it as fast as possible. In this video, the developers themselves react to this speedrun of Crash Twinsanity, discuss how they built the game, and argue about who was responsible for each bug.