Extremely checkered background--welder, machinist, mechanical designer, nuclear weapons research technician (remember SDI?), entrepreneur, 3D graphics modeler and animator, digital artist, writer, editor, student of languages, blues guitarist.
Currently trying to learn Objective-C, Xcode, and iOS (and now they go and switch over to Swift :)). I'll have to say that being a nearly exclusively right-brain, artistic kind of guy, the rigorously logical thinking necessary to write code has proven my biggest challenge to date. I've got tremendous respect for people who master it.
I've also found coding to be a lonely pastime, because almost nobody has any idea what you're talking about.