You and me both man, I'm a total newbie also or I'd offer to help (I'm below San Jose by about 20 minutes).
I loved how before i bought this thing I looked at everyone sketches and they made sense, and when I go try something with mine I'm at a complete loss...
I wrote you to tell you that meetup.com has an arduino meetup now, I haven't had the chance to go to it because I just bought my board yesterday but am going to check it out for help... Look at TechShop San Jose and it should be listed there under meetup.
- Jason