I've been writing business apps for a long time, but always wanted to learn more about how to make electronic devices do my bidding.    I played with PIC chips a few years ago, but that didn't really do much for me.   I subscribe to Make magazine, and after reading some articles about Arduino, started hacking at that, and it's been a blast.  

If you're interested in electronic gadgets and want to learn more about how they work, I can't recommend Arduino highly enough.  

Here's how I got started:

1. Buy the Arduino Starter Pack listed at the top of this page: http://ladyada.net/learn/arduino/

2. Read on down that page, and do all 5 lessons.  

3. Buy the book Making Things Talk: Practical Methods for Connectiing Physical Objects.  
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596510519

Armed w/ the knowledge from the 5 Adafruit lessons, this book will fill in a lot of blanks and really get you thinking.  

4. Have fun!