Mike, I've got a very good news for you which, to my surprise, nobody mentioned in this thread:
Right now, Micrsoft is developing a .NET version of Python ( http://www.ironpython.com ). It has been started as an open source project by Jim Hugunin, which was later hired by Microsoft to keep on working on it. So soon, you'll have an excellent language like Python (which is much better, easier amd powerful than Visual Basic) and you'll be able to create GUI programs with Visual Studio, just like you use to do with VB6. Meanwhile, you can start playing with the language (which is still in pre-alpha state, version 0.6). -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
