💼 Work Hard 3/23/25

Hi Everyone!

To take a page from the most interesting man in the world, “I don’t always fly. But when I do, I fly frontier.” Now the real most interesting man in the world probably flies in a private jet, or at least Delta.

While Frontier will nickel and dime you for just existing on their planes, they make up for it by giving you a free trading card of an animal mascot. Today’s card featured Chocolate the Moose, whose favorite dessert just so happens to be chocolate mousse! 

Anyway, without further ado, let’s find out what’s up with Will…

After a series of delays that resulted in 12 hours of total travel time, I landed at Raleigh Airport at 2:00 AM on Monday. So I slept for about 3 hours, and then I ran to help at an AI conference in Durham. 

The conference was called All Things Open AI and was held at the historic Carolina Theater in downtown Durham. The theater was built in 1926 and has held Elvis, Katharine Hepburn, and many other celebrities back in the day. And now, it’s hosting a bunch of tech bros arguing over the best way to improve your productivity with AI. How times have changed…

The conference was two days long, with the first conference being a workshop day, and the second being dedicated to presentations. I met a lot of interesting people. One person who grew up in rural North Carolina, told me that in the 1970’s, they still used an abacus. And while this is an outlier from most experiences, it really made me realize that I truly grew up as the world was switching from Analog to Digital.

While I was busy helping out, I did have time to explore Durham.

Also known as Bull City, Durham was funnily enough given that name because a tobacco company was looking for a mascot and decided to use the same one as a local mustard company. The Bull has stuck around ever since. 

The first stop was a tiny little museum called the Museum of Durham History. Durham, while originally a train depot, turned into the hub that it is today in large part because of the Tobacco industry and the man behind that astronomical growth James Buchanan Duke. After making a lot of money, he did what all other robber barons do: donate a ton of money to a university to save face. Nowadays, you might be familiar with Durham due to Duke University’s stellar medicine program, but the irony that the same person who gave Duke money is the person whose company at one point produced 90% of the US’s cigarettes is not lost on me.

On the way back to the theater for the next session, I saw that the Durham Arts Council had a couple of free exhibits. The first set of paintings called Midlife by Hyewon Grigoni (the purpose is to make viewers reflect on their view of life from your current moment), a set of photos entitled Life is Service by Jordan Abdur-Ra’oof (a series looking at community connection and hospitality), and a second photo and recorded conversation series called More than Enough by Denise Allen (looking at the power, resilience, and beauty of black women).

Durham has a pretty good food scene with a large number of local craft breweries and cideries, an excellent pizza place called El Toro, and a soft-serve place called Simon Says Dip, where you can get a hard shell, dipped cone in up to 20+ different flavors (I chose pistachio!)

The conference wrapped up on Tuesday, so I flew back to SF all day Wednesday. Thankfully, there were no delays.

I found out Thursday morning that Dairy Queen was giving out free ice cream cones in honor of National Free Cone Day. The biggest issue here is that there are no Dairy Queens nearby, so I had to drive 25 minutes just to get a cone. That wouldn’t stop me though.

In all, I probably spent more money driving to the DQ than I saved by getting a free cone, but it was for the principle of the matter. 

Sometimes though, the fates align in ways that were never thought possible. When Rylee got back from work she informed me that it was also free Italian ice day at Rita’s. So I got back in the car and drove to Rita’s where I was hand-delivered Italian Ice from Rita’s mascot who is aptly named “Cool Guy”.

Then, after a week of working hard, Rylee and I went to Disneyland. 

I will say that I am probably more of a Disney adult than I care to admit, but it is such a fun place to visit. I love going on the rides (my personal favorite is Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride), meeting the characters, and pin trading.  During our visit, it was the food and wine festival, so they had interesting foods like Birria Mac and Cheese and a Pickle Whiskey Sour.

I love to travel, but between working full time, finishing up grad school, and job hunting, I don’t exactly have the time or mental capacity to plan trips. I’m so unbelievably grateful that Will enjoys traveling as much as I do and is willing to handle trip planning for us. I’m able to just show up and go without worrying about the details, and that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t have such an amazing partner. I literally didn’t know what airline we were flying until I arrived at the airport on Friday. It was amazing. I desperately needed a break, and there’s no better break from everyday life than Disney! 

Will and I started pin trading on our first trip to Disney together in 2023. Basically, you buy Disney pins and trade them with cast members and other guests for pins that are more valuable or more interesting to you. The first “blind box” (mystery pack) I ever bought was a set designed by the artist Joey Chou. This was the first full set of pins that I collected, and his art is what got me interested in this hobby. 

This weekend, we had the opportunity to meet Joey and get his autograph. They say to never meet your heroes, but Joey was the coolest person ever and was totally worth waiting in the hour-long line to talk to.  He even drew me a sketch of my favorite pin!

Most of you probably don’t know this about me, but I have a deep, unwavering love for Donald Duck. He’s so angry. He has the worst luck. And I relate to him so much. I mostly collect Donald Duck pins, and I picked up quite a few cool ones on this trip. 

Of course, I had to stop for a photo op with him, and he asked if I was his “number 1” fan. I’ll let you judge if I am from these photos…

Now that I’m feeling emotionally refreshed and physically drained (the sign of any good vacation), it’s back to the real world. TTFN (Ta Ta For Now). 

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I want to watch a musical with Animal Crossing characters?” If so, this is the video for you. This man completely remade the entire Hamilton Musical Using Animal Crossing. The project took him a year to make. Mad respect.