Hi, everyone. I'm relatively new here (a week or two) and figured I'd finally say hello.
I started photography around 1982-1983 or so with my dad's Voigtlander rangefinder. With a broken meter and lots of time on my hands, I got pretty good at exposures, etc. Working part time after high school I finally bought my own Canon A-1 w/50mm ƒ/1.8 FD in 1984 for the whopping sum of $191 (IIRC). Over the years I collected a lot of sweet FD glass (including L's) and by the time everything was just so... I went digital. This was 2001. *sigh*
I've had prints in galleries, taken high school and college photography and lighting classes and had a darkroom in the basement. Man, I miss the smell of the chemicals...
I wanted to go digital but never liked the P&S cameras and pretty much had my sights set on a "real camera" that at least had manual controls. The Olympus E-10 was looking like the way I was going to go. Somehow, I just couldn't do it - I wanted a DSLR, and bought a Canon D30 instead practically on the spot. Not having any EF glass, I picked up a Tamron 28-300mm. Not great, but at least I had everything covered. Over the last (nearly) five years I didn't expand on my gear much except for a 50mm ƒ/1.8 Mk I (nice) and a 35mm ƒ/2.0 (sweet). No flash, nothing really decent except for the two primes. Naturally I had the polarizers, etc. from the old kit. I got caught in the IT bubble exploding shortly after, so having money to throw around was nonexistant.
Finally I had had enough... Time for gear. In the last week I've acquired the 16-35mm ƒ/2.8L, the 24-70mm ƒ/2.8L and a Speedlite 580EX. Woohoo! I knew from my FD collection that the L's were the way to go. Sometime over the summer I'll pick up a 70-200mm ƒ/2.8L IS and a 30D or a 5D (though I really want a 1Dxx body). See, there is a market for the 30D. 
I never upgraded the digital kit over the years much because I shoot mostly products (for reviews) and situations where you could get by with a 35mm easily enough. I pursued more of a "documentary" style and let my artistic side slip. Time to change that.
Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I'm no n00b to photography and have been shooting quite a bit for the last 23 years. By profession, I'm a senior Unix systems manager but photography is my passion.
Hopefully I can learn from and teach some folks here as well. 
