I originally started playing guitar in the mid-1980s, at the age of 16. This is, it turns out, a fairly late age to start playing, and the dream of ever being able to play guitar professionally was put aside by the necessities of life, such as paying rent and obtaining groceries, (not to mention the reality that I've always been more skilled at other activities than I am at playing guitar).
Years have passed, of course, including far too many when I didn't play any guitar at all. I got tired near the end of the 1990s of seeing myself as "the guy who used to play guitar," and decided to make an effort to become one of the guys who STILL plays guitar!
I now own much better quality guitars and amplifiers than I did in those early years, so although I don't spend as much time playing the guitar as I did then, I'm able to get much more satisfaction and enjoyment from it. Between yearly pilgrimages (since 2003) to the Guitar Workshop Plus, a few private lessons in 2004 with a teacher who helped quite a lot (particularly with reading skills), and various instructional materials, including Doug Marks' Metal Method Instructional DVDs, I find that I'm playing better than I ever did when I was younger and am now progressing more quickly, although I still feel I was able to play more songs then (although not particularly well, and without any solos or leads).
Theory courses, as part of an as yet unfinished Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in music (electro-acoustic studies, specifically) at Concordia University have helped me understand much better the music I hear and play.
At the moment, all I have is a quick list of the guitar gear I own. I hope to have photos accomanying this list soon.
Now, although I own numerous effects, guitars, and amps, I really only use a small number of the above. In fact, the pedals haven't been used in years. My go-to guitars are usually the Jackson Soloist, the MusicMan, or the Larrivée LS-4. The Larrivée is the guitar I've owned the longest, and have abused ("customized") the most. I tend to use it now mostly when I specifically want to use the Floyd Rose vibrato bridge, which isn't very often, but it does happen. The custom shop Larrivée sees a fair bit of playing as well.
The ASI Sustainiac is used specifically with the GR09 synth and when I want the sustainer effect. The Jackson RR5 can be fun to play with when I want to kid myself that I'm a "Rock Star™". The hollow-body is used to play around with slide and open-tunings, neither of which I'm particularly good with. Its Bigsby-clone vibrato tailpiece has been replaced with a stationary "trapeze" tailpiece, and the single-coil pickups (one of which was no-longer functional) have been replaced with Seymour Duncan (JBTB14 and JazzSH2N) humbuckers (purchased second-hand from someone who took them out of a Jackson SLATQH, so I was pleased to get these!) It looks like Hell, but it still can be fun to play with.
For amplification and tone modification, I'm usually either plugging straight into the Tube-Works combo (and using its built-in effects), or one of the bigger amps with the Roland GP-8 and the Marshall cabinet. Most of the other effects are pulled out very rarely when I specifically want to play with those sounds. The G3X is the latest addition, and I'm experimenting with it as a more compact alternative to the GP-8 with its FC100 and an EV5. It should streamline my setup when playing out, so I can show up with a guitar, cables, and the G3X, plug in, tune up, and be ready to play.
A few years ago I got myself a Korg Toneworks AX10G amp simulator, which I have used to permit me to play with a small practice amp at the Guitar Workshop Plus, and still find a sound that can be inspiring, rather than the cheap "practice amp" sound that practice amps get. In 2009, I picked up a Behringer Vamp2 on eBay, that was supposed to be broken. The intention was fix it and sell it (fixing this kind of stuff is actually quite fun for me), but I'm actually quite impressed with how it sounds (it has worked fine from the moment I received it). As I write this, late August 2009, I haven't decided whether I'd prefer to sell the Vamp2 of the AX10G. They're both quite good units, with each their own strengths and weaknesses. The G3X also has amp modeling on-board, so it really just adds to the available options that way, but it also permits me to switch individual effects on and off without switching patches, which I find quite nice.
I also own a few (mostly 1980s era) synthesizers, a piano, and some recording equipment, which may someday be listed here as well.