I'm in the same boat - a recovering 'ideas guy' who buckled down and actually learn to hack over the past year or so. (One of the best decisions I've ever made. Though, granted, I developed a real passion for it.) I'm enjoying Ruby/Rails, but will probably check out Python next, because so many smart people seem to gravitate to it.

BUT, that said, I'm going to commit hacker heresy and recommend that you consider starting with Javascript. Here's why:

Hackery reasons:

- it's how I learned object-oriented programming

- it's how I learned functional programming. (well, ok, a little bit of Scheme helped, too.)

Practical reasons:

- in any project, no matter what the backend is, you're always gonna need JS on the front end

- with the rise of rich UIs (ajax and whatnot), people who really know their JS are in demand, and it's a niche that most hackers don't focus on

- you can learn from studying thousands of other real-world programs. (when you see something cool on some website, just pop open the hood -- or, rather, pop open firebug -- to see how it works.)

- it's the layer that's closest to the user. this forces you to keep everything in context while you hack.

- you said you're a good listener. empathy is key to UI design, so you might find this to be a good place to mix your strengths with code.

Ok, now all you real hackers can tear me apart for recommending a toy language. ;-)