Modify index.php to show a static post and recent posts from a category

Hi I’m new to WordPress and am currently trying to modify this theme.

It’s been designed to show only ONE post per view, and I am trying to get it to show a static post (which acts as an introduction), followed by posts from the category ‘thoughts.’

This is the index.php code I’m mucking around with:

<?php get_header(); ?>

<?php
$temp = $wp_query;
$wp_query= null;
$wp_query = new WP_Query();
$wp_query->query('showposts=1'.'&amp;paged='.$paged);
?>
<?php while ($wp_query->have_posts()) : $wp_query->the_post(); ?>

<!-- ><span class="date"><?php the_time('F j Y') ?></span> -->
<!-- >This article was written on this date, with the mathematical number of <?php comments_number('0', '1', '%'); ?> contributions.
 -->
<h1><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Comment: <?php the_permalink(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h1>
<!-- ><h2><?php the_excerpt(); ?></h2> -->

</div>

<div id="navigate">
<?php posts_nav_link('','','Prev') ?><span class="big"> <strong>/</strong> </span><?php posts_nav_link('','Next','') ?>

</div>

<div id="content_hold">

<div id="content">
<?php the_content('...'); ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>
<?php $wp_query = null; $wp_query = $temp;?>
</div>

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

I looked around on WordPress and tried:

$wp_query->query('category_name=thoughts'.'showposts=99'.'&paged='.$paged);

Which didn’t work, I assume the syntax is wrong or I can’t parse ‘category_name=thoughts’ in this case, I really don’t know.

Can someone help me out please?

Thanks.