The genesis
The name is Waqas Ahmed. That’s right, no u after that q. And a q is different from a g. I hate it when people automatically “correct” my name to Wagas. It happens more frequently than you would think. Yes, the name does have a meaning. You have to learn to pronounce it correctly before I’ll tell you.
I’m originally from Pakistan, born in 1977. I’ll be 27 this month. My family moved around a fair bit in my early years but I spent most of my schooling years in Islamabad at Beaconhouse. I graduated from GIK Institute with a healthy respect for girls (it was as close to an all boys college as you can get) and permanent carpal tunnel syndrome from many many late night Quake sessions.
Addictions
The geek bug caught me pretty early, in the form of a Commodore 64. I fiddled around with my share of PEEKs and POKEs but I have to admit my main interest was games. After a few years of this, I decided I finally needed a “serious” machine, so I downgraded to an IBM PC XT. No sound and bad graphics, but it was a legitimate computer. And it had Simcity on it. Fortunately PCs didn’t continue to suck too long and even my Amiga loving friends came over to the dark side eventually.
Of course it’s a little hard to be a geek without an unhealthy sci-fi obsession. Dune got me started and I’m still reading. To round off the whole image I am also a big fan of comics and graphic novels. I fear the day when I’ll be made to throw out 3.4 metric tons of collected comics.
Nomad
I moved to southern California from Pakistan loved it there. The traffic was as bad as the weather was good, but all in all, I call it a fair trade once you throw in the beaches. In June 2004 I ended up moving up the coast to Washington. I came expecting to be drenched, but the first two months in Seattle were hotter than most days in Ventura. Maybe it only felt that way because I broke my car A/C and never bothered to get it repaired. I’m still reserving judgment on the winter rains. I can believe Seattle will get pretty gloomy pretty fast if it really does drizzle 24/7.
There is something to be said about living in a reasonably large city as opposed to a tiny beach town. I like Seattle. Lots of events: concerts, opera, theater and indie movies. LA certainly had more events but here at least they’re accessible. But don’t get me started on downtown parking. Argh!
The industry
I studied computer science because I wanted to make games. Maybe some day I still will. For now, I guess I’ll have to settle for paying the bills. Actually, that’s a lie. I love my work. It satisfies my inner geek tremendously. I’ve always wanted to work in a library or book store. That’s why I’m a technical program manager at Amazon. You can feel free to blame me about the mail in your inbox from Amazon.com. In my defense, I do eat my own dog food (I am my own best customer). Other than being able to supplement my book addiction while feeling good about contributing to the bottom line, it’s great to be part of a company which does so much cool stuff.