Welcome to the forum Pman! Yes, it can be a great hobby. I've had my Arduino for just a few months and came to it with practically no programming experience (just a little Basic back in the Commodore64 days). Just start with the easy blinking led stuff and work your way up. It can be a bit frustrating at first but once you're over the initial "hump" it starts making more sense and the learning comes more quickly. I got a lot from LadyAda's tutorials. To start I just got a breadboard some resistors and led's as well as a cheap multimeter and that kept me going for quite a while until I learned what else I needed. Good luck!