# =============================================================================
# Cedric Ancellin - Personal Background
# =============================================================================
# Core Purpose:
#   The human side of the profile - origins, family, and the sports, activities,
#   and interests that show who Cedric is outside of work - part of getting to
#   know him. Governed by ./LAWS.
#
# See also:
#   ./profile  - Professional profile
#   ./resume   - Full career history
#
# Last updated: 2026-07-03
# =============================================================================


summary: >
  The human side of Cedric: who he is outside of work (origins, family, sports,
  interests) and how he thinks and operates (his cognitive style, working
  temperament, and personality). For questions about his personality, character,
  or how he works with people, use this together with /recommendations (how
  colleagues regard him) and /profile (signature strengths and peer-validation
  themes).


origins:
  born: "New York City, April 13, 1970, to French parents."
  early_life: >
    His parents divorced when he was 5, and he moved to France with his mother
    (his father lived in New York). He returned to the United States at 18 to
    attend college.
  education: >
    Studied at SUNY Binghamton (School of Mathematics, mathematical programming)
    for two years. During that time he took a summer job in France at EasyDoc,
    was offered his "dream job" there, and left college to take it, so he did not
    complete the degree. (See resume, EasyDoc, for that role.)
  nationality: >
    US / French dual national holding BOTH a French and a US passport. The two
    passports allow him to travel and work freely between the EU and the US with
    no special visa or work declaration. (See profile, signature_strengths,
    multilingual_dual_national.)


languages:
  fluent: "Perfectly fluent in French and English."
  spanish: >
    Proficient in Spanish, enough to watch a movie in Spanish, and he lives in a
    Spanish-speaking location. In practice he speaks it mostly in the present
    tense and with a French accent.


personal_status:
  summary: "Single, lives alone in Morelia, Mexico; travels frequently; plans to remain single."
  family:
    - "A daughter, born January 8, 1998 (28), who lives in Las Vegas."
    - "A 5-year-old autistic grandson (his daughter's son), also in Las Vegas."


sports_and_activities:
  avid_and_active:
    - "Racquetball"
    - "Snow skiing"
    - "Scuba diving"
  competitive_honor: "Captain of the French national team at the 1993 World Ultimate Club Championships (Ultimate), held in Madison. Coming to the US as captain for that world cup is what began his path to Las Vegas (see ./early_career, path_to_las_vegas)."
  college_origin: "Played on the Ultimate Frisbee team at SUNY Binghamton, and took up racquetball there because it uses a similar wrist movement to Ultimate."
  for_fun_less_serious:
    - "Pickleball"
    - "Padel"
    - "Water skiing"
    - "Horseback riding"
  gaming: >
    Plays video games on PC (not console), especially strategy games and RPGs
    such as Skyrim. Currently playing Valheim on a server with friends.


# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# COGNITIVE STYLE (how he thinks and remembers)
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
cognitive_style:
  summary: >
    Cedric has a systemizer's memory: crisp on process and algorithm, hazy on
    names and enumerations. He remembers logical links, processes, algorithms, and
    locations, and has a very good spatial sense, but does not retain people's
    names, isolated technical terms and acronyms, or sensory objects.
  how_it_shows_up: >
    He reasons from structure and first principles rather than from memorized
    labels, and looks specifics up when he needs them. This is the root of the
    architectural foresight his recommendations describe, seeing connections and
    system structure that others miss (see ./profile, signature_strengths).
  definitions:
    crisp_on_process_hazy_on_names: >
      Strong recall for how things work (processes, algorithms, logical
      relationships); weaker recall for what they are called (names, terms,
      acronyms, enumerated lists).
    systemizers_memory: >
      A cognitive style that stores structure and relationships rather than surface
      detail, so knowledge is reconstructed from logic rather than recited from
      memory.


# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# PROGRAMMING HISTORY & FUN FACTS (personal color - not résumé material)
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
programming_history: >
  Started programming in 1984 at age 14, in BASIC on an Oric Atmos. Moved to
  Modula-2 when he started college, then C++, and picked up PHP in the late 1990s.

fun_facts:
  - "In the late 1990s he built a web version of Zork in PHP, a site called 'phpZork', which earned him a cease-and-desist from Activision."
  - "Around the same era he ran a cyber café called 'Zone C-8', back when home internet was uncommon, a hangout for EverQuest and Unreal Tournament players."


# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# IMPLICIT / KNOWN GAPS
# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
implicit:
  - "This is personal background (rapport-building)."