Hello from the Chicago suburbs. I am a 31 year old college freshman and stock clerk. Inferno I was a kid I loved playing around with electronics, taking everything I could apart (and then some) I loved my dads old 201 in 1 kit. The kit had components and a couple of simple ICs lated out with spring terminals you hooked wires to so you could build circuits. I also remember spending endless hours copying down BASIC code from magazines and printouts. I eventually let other things get in the way and haven't done much I'm the way of electronics or programming since then aside from some simple BASH scripting.
I decided to invest in an Arduino Uno and associated kit partly because I was looking for a way to use what I'm learning in my math classes (real world applications make thinks stick better for me) as well as because as a "biodiversity and ecological Design" student I was looking for a way to gather sensor data. Things like air/soil temp, humidity, soil moisture, and windspeed are very important to me. I saw a few videos on greenhouse/hydroponics/aquaponics controllers based on the Arduino board.
So far I'm only at the blinking LED stage but am excited to be tinkering around again.