Hello David,

I'm also just getting into bitcoins -- Unless you plan on mining, the only way to obtain bitcoins is to purchase them or to spend tons of time on bitcoin "faucets". I spent about 3-4 hours on 20 different fountains in order to get 0.000055 BTC which is ~equal to $0.04.

After doing some research I signed up for accounts at these exchanges: coinbase.com and campbx.com. It takes a few days to get verified, so I recommend setting up your accounts now and enabling two factor authentication. In addition to exchanging USD -> BTC and visa versa, coinbase also has an app that acts as a bitcoin wallet and lets you send and receive bitcoins on-the-go and even pay with BTC at participating vendors.

You can also skip the 0.55% commission by trading bitcoins in person at localbitcoins.com.

This wiki is also very helpful. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Main_Page