But what I found at Hot Dog U wasn’t just a quirky trade school with a great logo. People arrive from burned-out careers and unexpected life turns, from family kitchens and military mess halls, carrying stories as varied as their menus. They leave with a cart, a diploma, and — if it works — a shot at something better.
There’s something quietly radical about that. In a country where “entrepreneur” has become a buzzword for tech bros and hustlers, the students at Hot Dog U are a different breed. They're working-class dreamers.

Over the course of eight days, this fire chewed its way through 2.5 million cubic feet of cold storage and almost 30 million pounds of food therein. Including over 13 million pounds of surplus butter, purchased by the federal government as part of a longstanding price stabilization scheme and stashed away until they could figure out what to do with it. As it melted, this burbling lactic slurry blended into millions of gallons of hose and sprinkler water and oozed its way out of the rubble, down a hill and into the streets where it turned into a fast-flowing "butter river." A torrent of goop soup carrying a parade of charred fruitcakes, canned hams, and the occasional cob of corn past a line of slipping and sliding firefighters, and towards the city's beloved lakes. A literal flood of environmental ruin.

The 'Great Butter Fire,' as it came to be known, melted itself into Wisconsin lore. Despite its notoriety, the full story of the blaze remains unknown to most — yet unforgettable to those who lived it.

Her heart is racing. For three years, the Nixons have been searching for Kari Lynn. She should be 19 now, wherever she is. For Kathy, hope rises and falls like the banks of the river. But tonight, it’s overflowing. The tape — a copy of the latest hit video from the New Kids On The Block — supposedly holds a clue.

Kathy presses play. Hangin’ Tough, a quintessential 80s pop track about persistence, about not giving up, about aggressive unyielding, begins to play in their living room.

My partner Stephanie swore Eddie Ibanez was a fraud before I ever laid eyes on him, before I witnessed how the shape of him, his face, eyes, teeth, jaw, chin, his cartoon abdomen–his hair pieces–changed appearance as frequently as his biography. But I wasn’t listening. I was packing. Like everybody who surrounded Eddie, I wanted to believe in him.

Just outside the high desert ski haven of Taos, New Mexico, shortly after the adobe boutique stores give way to untamed, fenced lawns and the paved roads turn to dirt, a swarm of unusual structures begins to appear on the mesa. Glass-faced Earth homes with giant berm walls pop out from the ground, adorned in greenery. A circular Earthen fortress looks out over the horizon, resembling the turret of a castle. To its right, there’s a pyramid built with used beer bottles, wired and plastered together into packed walls. Inside, a ladder leads to a small altar, where a votive candle displays a recognizable figure:

A gray-maned man, holding up a peace sign, under an inscription reading…

I’ll never say die.

"Each blast of the jackhammer shoots through Jeff’s wrists and elbows, rattling his clenched jaw. He barely flinches, keeping the bit inside the tiny gap between the safe’s door and frame. Just a little more, a little more.

When the lock finally snaps, there’s a sudden rush of silence as the jackhammer rears up. Jeff tosses it to the side just before he loses control. The bit is stuck, but the force has busted the lock in half.  Jeff grabs the forgotten pry bar. With what feels like no effort at all after more than an hour of trying to tame the jackhammer, the older brother gingerly pulls open the safe door."

Beyond its cardboard parlor rooms lies a surprising connection to real-life crime solving, a legacy profound beyond pawns.

And, by 1996, a mystery surrounded the game itself.

Pratt, the game’s enigmatic inventor, had gone missing.

“Out of India's population of 400 million, the players are waived off by three lonely figures who stand at Ballard Pier shouting well wishes and good luck. Rex squints as the figures grow smaller, eventually disappearing into the horizon. Little does he realize how different his return will be.”