It's all happening!

May 16, 2014.

The beginning of Star Wars Weekends at Disney for this year, but it has a bit more significance this time around. This is the first Star Wars Weekend since THE ANNOUNCEMENT; the one where Disney wrote George Lucas a HUMONGOUS check, and immediately announced work was already underway for the words I’d waited a few decades to see in print.

STAR WARS: EPISODE VII

Also today, a few other things happened, to me personally and to the Star Wars community as a whole. This morning, one simple tweet gave me the goosebumps I’d not felt in a very long time. "Officially begun, production has." That was followed later in the day by an official picture of Pinewood Studios, with a very simple sign hanging outside.

But personally, something really cool happened to me, as well. The one and only Dave Prowse posted a tweet that read something like “Send me your pics of you dressed as Darth Vader and I’ll retweet them.” So I dug up a picture from the Cincinnati Reds Star Wars Weekend of me, on the field, during the national anthem. I'm pretty sure this was an AP photo or some other national news media outlet. But I posted it, and sent a tweet to Mr. Prowse. Half an hour later, while I was at work, I went back to see if I made the cut. Well...

I got retweeted by DARTH VADER. As I was dressed in my 501st approved, Lucasfilm sanctioned Darth Vader costume.

That’s gotta be a 10.0 on my Cool Sh*t-O-Meter.

So, here we are. A year and a half until a new episode of the movie franchise that has helped shape a generation, and continues to influence the generations since. And I am sitting right in the middle of the renaissance as a member of the 501st Legion, playing the biggest, baddest bad guy who turns back to good guy EVER.

With a little luck, maybe the next email I get from someone with Lucasfilm will start out "We'd like you to audition for the role of Darth Vader in the upcoming Episode IV.5..." (How do you write a half number in roman numerals?) But even if they never call or write, doing what I'm doing is incredibly cool and fulfilling. And the group of guys and girls that we troop with regularly, are an incredible bunch. And TK-Tim is fully back in the fold with us.

Who is TK-Tim, you ask? Well, that's another story...and one I've owed you, dear reader, for some time. He's the guy who got me into all of this, and that story is up next.

I promise.