No one of consequence.

My name is Frank Wong.  I’m Chinese-American cisgender man; both of my parents are Chinese. My dad passed away in 1977, and my mom outlived him by twenty nine years. I was born in Spain and grew up in Puerto Rico and Florida.  I have two sisters, one four years my senior and one year my junior. Most of my family still lives in Florida.

I’m trilingual (English, Cantonese, and Spanish); I also studied Latin, French and Mandarin, but I don’t really count them. These days I speak English almost exclusively, and most will say that I speak it without an accent. Culturally, I’m a mixture of those the cultures where I learned each language. I appreciate the collectivistic elements of my Chinese culture. I’m grateful for the poetic parts of my Puerto Rican upbringing. I’m proud of the American pragmatic and individualist mentality. My tastes in music are similarly expressed by those cultures.

I attended a Catholic school in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico though I don’t consider myself a Catholic. My parents hoped we’d get a better education by putting us in a private school. Most of our classes were taught in Spanish, and English was taught as effectively a foreign language (and I failed it). Some though not all of our teachers were nuns.

We moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida about a year after my father died. I attended Parkway Middle School. This is where I really learned English and where I learned racism. To be completely fair, I learned about racism on the bus and shortly after I got off the bus. This is where I had the only music instruction in my life. I did year of band; I lettered in percussion.

I then attended South Plantation High School. I excelled at math, science, and computers. I even competed in math and computer contests and won a few. While math and computers came naturally to me, reading nourished my mind and my imagination; I entertained the idea of becoming a novelist. My guidance counselor, after looking at my PSAT scores, implied that I had the writing aptitude of a house plant and suggested I go into engineering. Engineering wouldn’t be a stretch, I attended a summer program in engineering at the University of Miami during my junior year in high school.

So off I went to the University of Miami. College is likely what shaped most of who I am today and where I became a grown up. It’s also where I reunited with my Spanish heritage, which I almost forcefully tried to forget when I was in middle and high school. It’s where I found my identity. I completed a computer engineering degree (and second degree) after five years.  In some ways, I still consider South Florida my home and entertain moving there once I finally stop working.

I now live in the Seattle area, with my (eventual) wife whom I met around 2000.  We met when she did a simple web search and found my personal web page on Geocities when she was curious about the Seattle weather.  That page is long gone now, though you can find mirrors of it in places even if it keeps moving around.  I have no remnants of that page anywhere here.

I’m a computer geek by trade.  I’ve worn a number of different hats, so that’s probably the best description.  I moved here straight out of school to work for Microsoft in 1991 and have remained in the area (and the business) since.  I do love my work (though I’m no longer at Microsoft), but that’s not the reason why you’re reading, is it?

I have a lifelong fondness for Lego builds, something that started with my dad when I was very young. This may be the reason why I’m an engineer. When I was young Lego sets were just a collection of bricks with maybe a handful of simple models, but for the most part we created our own builds, many fantastic whimsical towers. As an adult, I appreciate both the collector’s fascination with Legos and free-form builds with pure creativity.

Having followed the Atlanta Braves since the early 1980’s, I also spend fair amount of brain power thinking about baseball. I was educated by the voices of Skip Caray, Pete van Weiren, Ernie Johnson, Don Sutton, and Chip Caray. Naturally over the years, I’ve consumed the games by different means. I’m fascinated by the elegance and symmetry of baseball and have firm opinions about the game, which I may share on occasion, but probably not on this site. The Braves are still my favorite team, and no… I don’t root for any professional team (in any sport) based on geography.

Anything else you may learn as you read my posts.