After 10 years of doing help desk, desktop support and LAN administration, I'm ready to go back doing the very thing that got me into computers in the first place, programming!  Even though I have never coded in a work environment, I do have knowledge of a few computer languages (Visual Basic 3, C, Assembly Language, and BASIC) but this was 10+ years ago and while I browse through a programming book every now and then, my focus has been on Windows desktop support and LAN Administration, until now.  I always had a love for programming even over these past 10 years.

I realized that things have changed in software development.  So I'm pretty much starting from scratch again.  My interest mainly lie in Web development with ASP.NET so I'm learning HTML, CSS in addition to ASP.NET and plan to learn C# afterwards.  I have taken the initiative and visited a local .NET user group at the local Microsoft office and talked to a few developers.  Fortunately, I came around the same time the office was having an Installfest for the trial version of Visual Studio Professional 2008 so I got it installed on my laptop.

What I want to know is, considering my goal and my current background, what else should I learn, any additional people I should talk to.  Also how can I eventually get potential employers to take me seriously as a junior developer?  I know I can be successful at it but it appears I'm in a catch-22 situation, how do I get a job for development when I don't have experience when employers only want experienced people.

Any help is greatly appreciated?