Welcome to the San Jose Ruby Hackfest! I'm one of several of the organizers of the hackfest. There are many folks involved in organizing the meetings.

Here's a list of resources to get you started in the wonderful world of the Ruby language...

Hal Fulton's page, author of The Ruby Way, the best book for learning idiomatic Ruby style:
http://rubyhacker.com...

Try writing some Ruby without installing anything (using just the browser):
http://tryruby.hobix....

The *BEST* free Ruby tutorial ever:
http://poignantguide....

A great way to challenge yourself and see how other people solve problems with Ruby:
http://rubyquiz.com/...

A *basic* tutorial on how to program, using Ruby:
http://pine.fm/LearnT...
http://www.pragprog.c...

The new Pickaxe, this is the 1.9 versions (1.8 also available) - a great reference in PDF format:
http://www.pragprog.c...
(Rails currently uses 1.8)

I used this book to get some pointers on how to work Ruby into my everyday job as a Sys Admin:
http://www.pragprog.c...


For those also interested in Rails... here are some additional resources...

There is a tutorial in the Rails book that I would recommend going through. Also, for specific topics the Rails Recipes books are great.

The PragProg Rails book (3rd Ed., covering Rails 2):
http://www.pragprog.c...

The first Rails Recipes book (Adv. available also):
http://www.pragprog.c...


And, to keep things interesting, there's a hill of great projects out there, to help your Ruby apps stand on the shoulders of giants...

Ruby-Processing:
http://wiki.github.co...

A tiny console app toolkit (for Ruby):
http://shoooes.net/...

Merb will soon be merged with Rails... lots of good ideas in there:
http://merbivore.com/...

Other than that, I know there are libraries for lots of other cool stuff, like integration with Arduino (RAD), R (statistics app), cloud computing, etc. Dan (one of the other organizers) and I are currently working on a new Rails app which will hopefully use a CouchDB database. This is the long way of saying that the Ruby community is diverse, full of energy, and always a great way to find out about cool new stuff.

Another note, the Hackfests are a great informal place to work on Ruby in the presence of other humans. I meet a lot of great people this way. But, if you also want structured, lecture-style presentations, there are other great Meetups for Ruby / Rails in the Bay Area.

Happy Hacking!