I was born on an Air Force base in Tokyo, Japan; but I am not with a Japanese ancestry. I am the second son of an officer in the United States Air Force, Lt. Col. William M. Lackey. We were a military family and we moved often. This is why I was only in Tokyo for my first year on Earth and have yet to return there. Perhaps some day I will.

After pre school in Maryland we moved to Wiesbaden, Germany, Heidelberg AFB specifically. The year was 1971 and I was in first grade. Subsequently, the last digits of the years corresponded with what grade I was in during my years in elementary school, junior high and high school. 1979 was ninth grade. As a family we traveled throughout many countries in Europe. I remember wandering through castles and hiking with my parents and siblings through forests and learning to ski in the Austrian and Swiss Alps.

My first creative collaboration was a progressive rock band that I joined and played bass in just after graduating High School in Redlands, Calif., in 1982. It lasted until 1984 and we disbanded to pursue college educations.

Once I acquired my Associate Arts degree from Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, Calif., I then transferred to Long Beach State and completing my undergraduate education in Radio, Television and Film but my only interest was Film. I graduated in 1989 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Film, only a year after compact discs began to replace vinyl records and cassette tapes as the format to listen to music with. DVD’s were something anticipated and discussed in our film courses as the next amazing way to see and experience cinema, setting aside videotape with VHS tapes bought or rented in commercial stores such as Blockbuster Video, among other such lesser known or privately owned stores.

At this time, 1990, the World Wide Web was the next new technological phenomenon expected by those aware of it and it’s first pioneers such as “America On Line (AOL)” to change