When did you first try Lisp seriously, and which Lisp family member was it?
The first serious try has been Emacs lisp, for hacking my own key-bindings and C-Programming/Debugging features.

What led you to try Lisp?
I was interested in AI, I knew Prolog already, but found it much too abstract and inperformant to write larger things in it. Then I stumbled across KLOne systems, implemented in Lisp, with OO-Programming features around. And I tried Common Lisp...

Where did your road originate?
I knew at that time Pascal, C(++), Prolog and some Java. I found it interesting, to have easy access to first class functions (Much easier than in C etc.). Also having something like map(x) at hand instead `for' or `while' ....

How far have you gotten in your study of Lisp?
Hmm, I'm writing mostly CLOS, with my own MOP. I'm using CORBA which becomes easier with macros that work in an Aspect-Programming way, switching error-handling and stuff as I like it. I think over the years I finally understood, what all the chapters in CLtL are about. For Java the similar has been clear after some months. But then there was no way to improve the expression of the program.

What do you think of Lisp so far? Speaking for CL I think the language has most features I want, but is sometimes stuck in old design decisions. Anyways, it is possible to change even that in your own packages. In many areas it provides far to many ways to express exactly the same thing, making it difficult to read other peoples programs (especially, if they are macro-fans).