[fest]

In addition to reading a book on basic EE, buy an AVR-based Arduino. From a perspective of professional EE/embedded developer Arduino may seem limited, but there is loads of information on "how to connect X to Arduino".

If you are specially interested in embedded programming, try to start using avr-gcc directly- you'll be forced to learn lot of low level stuff which is hidden by Arduino IDE.

[sobering]

I'm glad you suggested what you did because that's exactly my current setup.

I have an ISP and Arduino. I yanked the AVR chip off the Arduino and stuck it on a breadboard. I just found it difficult to do anything due to my lack of EE knowledge. I could understand the programming basics due to past experience, but had no clue what was going on under the hood.

I think I'll read that EE book and then continue on the path I'm on.