>Looking to build a path towards certification in .NET, either VB or C#. Jury is still out on which one I will ultimately end-up going for. Any suggestions on the best way to pursue that?

I bought a self-paced training book from MS, and it was absolute crap. Mis-spellings, typos, and even invalid code. The book I got was for MCTS 70-536 and was called ".NET FRAMEWORK 2.0 - Application Development Foundation". Avoid it at all costs.