Science as a profession
Well it is not really glamorous, nor does it pay fantastically well, but I love it. I am (trying) to make a difference in the world. Being a research doctor (Ph.D. that is) is not like being a physician. Physicians treat people here and now. Biochemical research aims to understand why ailments exist and how can treatments be developed. And yes, a miniscule fraction of your tax dollars (and some charitable donations) are paying for it. Are you getting your money's worth? Of course, the U.S. population and government have other priorities, so there is little funding for new academic professorships.
What kind of science are we talking about? Chemistry -> Biochemistry -> Structural Biology -> X-ray Crystallography. I study the three dimensional structure of proteins and enzymes. In theory and practice, if you know what an enzyme looks like (at the atomic level), you can design drugs to modify the action of that enzyme.
Postdoc 2:
It is exciting to be excited about your work. Wouldn't you like to say, "I am helping cure leukemia?” My research has direct applications to fighting multiple forms of cancer as well as a few virus mediated diseases. Oh, and I got a publication in Cell too. My other research involved proteins from Pseudomonas aeruginosa with implications for treating infections in cystic fibrosis patients, and I looked at the de novo purine synthesis pathway in humans which can be targeted to treat certain cancers.
Postdoc 1:
This work was less exciting; mostly since my boss and I did not see eye-to-eye. Here I learned to either shutup and take it or leave. I chose the latter...as well as nearly everyone else in the lab. Well, at least I got a publication out of it. Be sure you do research on who you want to do research with. I have nothing more to say.
Graduate School:
Dr. Joshua Sakon persuaded me to join him at the University of Arkansas Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. It was one of the best decisions of my life. But, the U of A? It actually has a fantastic Chemistry department with a lot of state-of-the-art equipment. One of my projects there was part of a $9.6 million grant from the NIH, and one of the proteins is being used as a vector for a novel drug delivery system (patent pending).
Publications:
Wilson, J. J., Matsushita, O., Okabe, A., Sakon, J. (2003) A bacterial collagen-binding domain with novel calcium-binding motif controls domain orientation, Embo J. 22, 1743-52.

Wilson, J. J., Malakhova M., Zhang R., Joachimiak A., Hegde R. S. (2004) Crystal structure of the dachshund homology domain of human SKI, Structure 12, 785-92.

Wilson, J. J. and Kovall, R. A. (2006) Crystal structure of the CSL-Notch-Mastermind ternary complex bound to DNA, Cell 124, 985-996.

Friedmann, D. R., Wilson, J. J., Kovall, R. A. (2008) RAM induced allostery facilitates assembly of a Notch pathway active transcription complex. J. Biol. Chem. 283,14781-14791.

Programming as a profession
I came upon this work by accident. While an undergraduate at Cornell University, I took a number of programming classes (C, Java, and C++). Being a research scientist in X-ray crystallography, I would occasionally need to write small Fortran or C programs to convert data formats. At the same time, I also wound up being a SGI/Unix/Linux/OS X system administrator for 12+ years, so I had plenty of computer experience (although never a degree in the field). Back in 2005 my brother got me interested in an open source MMORPG called Eternal Lands. However, there was no usable Mac OS X client. So, over the course of a few months (and fixing innumerable endian programming issues) I produced a working port to PowerPC Macs. The Intel based Macs were soon to follow (much easier). Since that time I implemented the first special effects for magic spells, and I have continued to maintain active builds of the game.

I have been picked up as a programming consultant by Systemic Pty Ltd, an Australian based group of software engineers.