My story begins like few others here, I'm sure. My first experience with Star Wars was actually in utero.

You see, I was born in 1983, just a few months after Return of the Jedi was released. My mother was already a Star Wars fan from her youth, so she stood in line 3 months pregnant with me to see Return of the Jedi on opening day. You can see, I had no chance of a normal life.

I grew up watching Star Wars. A New Hope was one of the few movies my parent's had on Videodisc and their first movies on VHS were Empire and Jedi (at $50 a piece!). There was never a time I can remember when I had not seen Star Wars. I quickly inherited my mother's already impressive Star Wars collection, which grew more with each passing year. One of my earliest memories is actually my fourth birthday party, when I had Star Wars decorations and a Darth Vader cake (whose black frosting made my best friend ill).

Some of my favorite childhood memories involve recreating the battle of Hoth with my figures whenever it snowed. I didn't have the Hoth Luke for the longest time, so I used to use the random Hoth Rebel trooper as Luke, who I would have Hoth Han stick in the Taun-Taun belly while the Scout Walker and Wampa chased them.

I grew in and out of fads for years (Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers, Batman), but Star Wars was always there in the background. The problem is that I had grown up with the movies so I had never truly seen them. I got the THX "Faces" VHS set for my birthday in 1995. It was then that I followed the movies and was blown away by them for the first time. The drama, the humor, I got it all for the first time watching that set.

Then the Special Editions came to theaters. I finally got to see the movies in theaters for the first time. While waiting in the lobby in between showings of ANH:SE on opening day, my friend and I were interviewed by a local radio reporter, who was way too excited about me having never seen Star Wars in theaters. During the movie, I was impressed with how much they had added to the sides of the frame, and only later did I realize that most of that had always been there, I was just missing it thanks to Pan & Scan. I bought the widescreen version of the SE set as soon as it came out.

Soon I found out about the prequels and got really excited for them, getting excited about feeling what it must have been like to see a brand-new Star Wars movie for the first time in theaters. I got excited about the first two movies, watched them several times in theaters, then realized how lackluster they really were, got tired of them, then got excited for the next one. The 2004 DVDs got me excited again about the original trilogy. However I did want the OUT on DVD, which drew me to this site years ago to sign the petition.

I always had a feeling that my love of Star Wars would find me a wife. I figured that if I could find a girl who liked Star Wars, everything else would work out just fine. One day during my senior year in college, I was sitting outside of one of my classes when I noticed this girl. I had talked to her a year before (on the set of a sci-fi movie my college made, but that's a completely different story), so I decided I might talk to her again. She had her Apple iBook open and was watching something. I leaned over to see what it was and was completely blown away. She was watching the bonus features from her own copy of the 2004 DVD (fullscreen, but she still had her own copy). I struck up a conversation with her telling her that I could show her the bloopers easter egg on that disc. Strangely, I couldn't get it to work on her iBook, but we made plans to try to show her the easter egg using another DVD player. And that's how our relationship began.

So not only did Star Wars affect my pre-natal development and childhood, it also helped me find a wife.

Here are some pictures my mom found from my youth, along with some more recent pictures:

And that's my story!