I am considering the jump as well (from i-banking), and have been putting in a considerable amount of work, but part of me is worried the growth we have seen will come crashing down soon and opportunities will disappear. It is hard to give up a nice salary and job security, especially when a similar position is very difficult to return to if things don't work.
eg: http://www.tourdust.com/products/844-atlas-mountain-sahara-d...
I need to get that and write it to a database with its fields like description, photo, cost, number of people etc.
Let me know if your interested. In return I can answer guide you becoming a better hacker ie, what you should read, questions on C,Python etc ...
But one warning - in the end its just about sitting in front a computer building something till its done. :)