Horribly outdated knowledge – what can I do?

So I’ve just made a return to the world of coding, after a 8 year break, and after speaking to some friends I’ve come to understand that wordpress is pretty darn neat, my basic html knowledge is outdated, the things i remember about css is still valid and that i need to learn xhtml. Very frustrating ofc, but helluva lots of funzies too since I get to learn new things!

Now I’ve found that the templates available through wordpress are awesome I have an issue with being unable to understand everything that is going on in the code. I’ve beeing trying to find some very basic templates but most of them usually have half a dozen things I don’t understand – So I don’t want to use them yet.

But what I do want is to strip it down to the bare minimum, and have a header with a sidebar and work from there:

View post on imgur.com

Is there a Guide/HowTo out there that explains this, or can someone provide the basic code to get these things and nothing else?

Any kind of help is accepted!

Thanks a mill!