Thanks guys.
I keep reading various things, but I don't really grok the transistor yet. Mostly, I think, because while I typically get the gist (functionally -- amplifier or switch), most articles either get into math I haven't studied, or present things in too much of a physics explanation, rather than practical. Also, I just don't spend time working with them, so I don't get the reinforcement of repeated lessons. That, and it seems like my brain isn't as agile or adept as it was back in the 80's, when first studied electronics. One thing I was wondering, just the other day, was if there's a wall chart sort of like these Ohm's law charts, but for transistors. I'm not sure exactly sure what I'd expect to find, but I figure there are some basic rules and characteristics which could be expressed.
As an example, if I'm reading a thread, and someone says something about using an emitter-follower, I can go read about that (just a random example) but it doesn't seem to mesh well with the context. Well, anytime I encounter greek letters, I wish I'd studied calculus, and figure I mostly won't be able to follow the discussion, because I can't read the equations properly.
Anyhoo, I'll check those links out. At some point, I'll have enough various bits tucked into my head that it'll start to mesh.
(But I'm really visually oriented, so a poster would be really cool.)