In his book 'Blink' Malcolm Gladwell deconstructs this process (blinks, twinges, gut feelings). Reading the book is a really good way of understanding how gut feelings or twinges occur, why you should trust it, thus how to put forward a rational argument for trusting it! http://www.gladwell.com/blink/index.html

And yeah, I was given the wood and the nails. I was 3, and from that day on til the day he died, my Dad always complained that I was forever nicking his nails! It explains a lot about why I turned into a programmer. Still have that first hammer too.