Thanks for the encouragement and validation.
I stumbled across this incredible article reading Jeff Atwood's now-apparently-controversial post on that subject I'm avoiding like the plague.
Back to the point, it basically summarizes what I tell all of my friends who gain an interest and want to learn fast. I've been learning for over a decade out of interest now since I was 12 and I will never refer to myself as anything other than marginally competent. I akin programming to math in the sense that the ceiling is not really there because there is always more to learn and thats what the majority of your (programming) life is spent doing.