Actually, I've been trying to avoid jQuery for several months.  I've had enough on my hands at the moment without digging down into some JavaScript nonsense -- aside from the fact that as much as I respect JavaScript, I could say with some degree of exaggeration (OK, a huge amount of exaggeration) that I hate JavaScript to the root of my soul.  Well, jQuery is JavaScript, and it's starting to get as ubiquitous as JavaScript, so I should hate it, too.

I turns out that jQuery may, however, be my salvation as far as JavaScript is concerned.  Because if you want to do anything remotely nifty and peachy keen on the web, you need to know JavaScript, and the niftier and peachier that you want to be, the better you better know JavaScript!  This is largely because it is an integral part of AJAX -- which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript And Xml. 

So, it's jQuery to the rescue!  I bought a book, jQuery in Action, by Bear Bibeault and Yehuda Katz, and CoDe Magazine has been publishing a new series on jQuery, by Rick Strahl, so it's time to dive deep and see what treasures I can wrest from the deep. 

Who knows?  Maybe I'll actually become good at this.