There's a pretty awesome online "Ruby in your browser" tutorial that you could try. It has a built in Ruby console and everything is interactive. It's takes 15-30 minutes or so to go through, and it's good. Someone put a whole lot of effort...
I just updated my primer/tutorial/walkthrough on CruiseControl.NET with some information about how to use msbuild.exe instead of devenv.exe in your minimal cc.net configuration. One good reason to go with msbuild is that you don't need to install...
I just wrote a page about how to set up CruiseControl.NET to compile and test a VS.NET web app solution in a few minutes . It's over at my Walkthroughs and Tutorials section.