I'm 37 years old and got my first guitar at the age of 9.  I wanted a guitar because my dad's brothers played in a band and sometimes would sit out on the front porch of my grandmothers house with a 6 string and a bass and play Beatles tunes and classic rock songs.  I thought it was awesome.  So I asked my parents for a guitar for Christmas.  I don't know the name brand of the guitar but I'm sure it was the cheapest one in the Sears catologue at the time.  My progress with learning to play the guitar has been very slow.  As a teenager I had few friends who played guitar and those who did have instruments didn't know how to play anything.  Over time I managed to learn some riffs and started getting interested in rock music while at the same time my mom was trying to get me into the music scene at our church.  Even though I was a 6 string guitar player my first experience in playing in front of an audience was at church but I played the bass guitar.  I didn't know much about playing bass but I managed to put the same basic bass patterns over almost any song that the church would play during it's worship services.  I did take some free lessons from this guy once for maybe two or three sessions however this person only played strumming type songs and did no soloing or lead work of any type.  I thought to myself that I was already beyond the level of play that this guy was teaching so I didn't stick with his lessons.  By the way, when on the first day of guitar lessons, your guitar instructor is tuning up your instrument for you and breaks the high E.... That's a signal that you probably are not learning from a very good teacher.  Anyway, all of the way through my teenage years I spent hours and hours every day just trying to pick out my favorite 80's rock songs and learn them by ear.  I didn't understand anything about scales and how to apply them or play them over chord progressions while staying in key.  So I just worked out the main riff's and would play them for my friends when they would come over.  I remember my mom banging on my door many times telling me to turn it down.  I always played my little 15 watt amp as loud as it would go to try and get a distorted sound from it.  I had no clue about effect's pedals at the time nor could I afford them if I did.  At some point I started hanging out at the local music store and got to know the owner who's name was Jose.  I later found out that he new my parents which was a plus because he then would allow me to go in and play instruments and test out effects pedals even though he knew there was no chance at all that I was ever going to buy anything.  Jose was a pretty good guitar player and the fact the he would come over to me from time to time and make comments to me about my playing really gave me the inspiration to try even harder to learn.  He would say things like " That sounds like a BlackFoot riff"  or " Show this guy that thing you just did".  I really was just making alot of noise then...   I got married at age 18 and for me working full time plus being married ment very little guitar time.  Additionally, my wife kind of discouraged me from playing.  She acted like she didn't like it but I later found out that she thought if I got really good I might end up in a rock band and it would be the end of our marriage.  So I didn't play the guitar very often for a long time.  I'd still play but the guitar was never out an available.  I'd pick it up only on occasion and only play an hour or so then put it back in the closet.  Maybe it would come out once per month or so.  over about the last 7 or 8 years I have been getting more and more interested in playing again.  I started recording myself often and noticed a very quick increase in my ability to learn new stuff.  I spent a year and a half in the Azores and while there I played my guitar daily for many hours each day.  I was lucy enough to be offored a position as lead guitarist in a classic rock band called "Disclaimer".  My experiences with this band are the highlight of my guitar life so far.  I learned alot from this.  It was super fun.  In the beginning I was scared to death of getting on stage and playing in front of a crowd.  Even now I spend about two hours before hand feeling pretty crappy from the nerves.  However, as soon as I start to play all the nervousness goes away.  It's always awesome after that.  I have really made some bade mistakes on stage as well.  You know things like stepping on the chord and pulling the plug out of the guitar or stepping on my effects box only to switch to the wrong effect.  I nearly blew every speaker in the club one night when I hit an effect that caused ear splitting feedback during the middle of a song.  I once even forgot where the solo was supposed to start in Sweet Home Alabama...  Funny now but horrible then.  However, was always fun.  When I left the Azores I had to leave the band life as well.  Now back at home with my wife I try to play my guitar every day.  My wife now supports my guitar habbit and even buys me cool stuff and writes songs for me to put music to.  How cool it that?  I now have 5 guitars and I'm really into recording now and hope to someday be able to put together a nice recording studio.  For now I lay all my tracks using a Boss Br-600 digital recording studio.  I think this peice of equipment is awesome.  However, I think its tough for serious recording studio professionals to respect such a small piece of gear.  I'm planning to put together an independent CD to sell on CDBaby.com.  My goal is to put together 14 original songs.  My 10 year old son got a set of acoustic drums for last Christmas.  He leaned how to keep basic beats and a few fills very quickly and we now have Father/Son jam outs on occasion.  I have two other sons but they havn't really gotten into music too much.  Maybe this will change in the future.  I plan to retire from my current job next year.  I would love to open a music store or something as a retirement job.  I'm looking into it but I really have no idea how to do it or what the cost would be.  There is already a really good guitar shop in my town called "The String Shop".  So I may have to find something else to do.  I will always be a guitar player though and I won't ever put my guitar in the closet again.