Hi NakedJedi - I'm in a similar boat - I'd suggest you start mining litecoin to see how it works, then spend some time around the forum and try mining some of the new altcoins that interest you.
From what I've seen so far, overall, if you want to make money from crypto you are probably best to buy and hold some litecoin, bitcoin and some new alt coins as a speculative move, but I see the appeal of wanting to mine.
Just realise the serious guys have 1000s of times the mining power you have and getting faster everyday.