Views and Panels implementation.

So I finally decided that Drupal was the best CMS for my purpose and have been learning bits and pieces over the last few days. I don't really have much experience with web development, PHP, or CMSes so it's been a learning experience (in a good way). I'm usually someone who learns better by observing and seeing how something fully functional works, deconstructing it and seeing how the pieces fit together, then setting off on my own to put all the pieces together. Unfortunately I can't really do that with Drupal as you can't get anything more than a basic site with no sample data or integrated plugins that are in use :/

I understand how the pieces fit together, but I'm having a bit of trouble with the actual implementation of it. Unfortunately most of the documentation I've found just tries to explain the overall picture and not how to effectively use the power that these tools provide. Are there any books or tutorials that people would recommend that go into this more in depth in how to actually use and implement these pieces (particularly views and panels, CCK and a lot of the other stuff was pretty straight forward) and how to effectively integrate them into the theme? I have the basics down but where I'm running into trouble is the myriad of options are and how to use them affectively. The trial and error approach I was using to learn it is just taking too long. I've also gotten a bit confused with panels, where to implement a regular panel vs a mini panel and how to effectively integrate and style it with the theme.

Obviously this isn't something anyone can cover in a reply but I'm just looking to be pointed in the right direction so I can read up on this in more depth than just what they do.