i got my hands on xsi demo when i was 21-ish... and i think i trashed it when i got it in the mail, but then i saw adds in a videogame mag that they use xsi in a lot of games... then that sort of sparked my interest in 3d. that was 2 yrs ago.
i've been using maya ever since.... and the 3d community is very small where i am, so all the support i had and trainning was mostly from forums and books.