I have started websites before. Like a lot of technical people, I am very good at building the framework, choosing the tools, changing the layout fourteen times, and then realizing I have written exactly two paragraphs.

I am trying not to do that this time.

Wok and Wire is a place for the things I actually talk about. That includes enterprise phone systems, Microsoft Teams, Avaya, SBCs, scripts, CSV files that have somehow become critical infrastructure, Chinese language and culture, cooking, gardening, biking, fishing, and whatever other project has taken over my attention that week.

The name fits better than anything else I came up with.

The wire side is my work. I have spent years around enterprise voice and contact-center systems. Most people do not think about how a phone call gets from one place to another. They press a button, hear ringing, and expect a person to answer. Behind that simple action can be a collection of carriers, session border controllers, routing rules, certificates, firewalls, cloud services, and old systems that were supposed to be retired three years ago.

The wok side is everything that keeps me from thinking about phone systems twenty-four hours a day. I cook most of our meals at home, usually for my wife and me. I like Chinese food, Mediterranean food, Italian food, and comfort food. Sometimes I follow a recipe. Sometimes I look at what is in the refrigerator and create a completely reasonable dinner by adding soy sauce, garlic, and a little panic.

Chinese belongs on both sides of the name. Learning it has become one of those interests that keeps expanding. It started with wanting to understand people better. Then it became tones, characters, slang, regional accents, livestream culture, and the realization that textbook Chinese and the Chinese people actually use online are related, but they are not always the same thing.

This site is not going to pretend I have everything figured out.

I will write about what worked, what failed, what I learned, and what I probably should have known before I started. Some stories will be technical. Some will be recipes. Some will just be funny because life has a habit of making very serious adults look ridiculous.

I will also leave out details that should stay private. I can explain how enterprise voice works without publishing an employer’s phone numbers, network design, or security problems. That seems obvious, but the internet has taught me not to assume obvious things are obvious.

So this is Wok and Wire.

It is part workbench, part kitchen, part notebook, and probably part evidence that I need fewer hobbies.

Let us see where it goes.