How should I create a main page with a mix of dynamic and static content? I apologize for the terribly basic question but I'm not even a particularly adept web dev.  I've read that Drupal is great if you know exactly what you want to do (then the API is handy) but I don't even know what I need yet. That is what I am hoping to gain from this discussion.

I want a main content page which has a fancy content slider (using jQuery or something) which will be a selector for showing some basic information on these 2 or 3 subjects.  I'm stuck on where I should be writing this mix of markup. In the template? Create "content" through a content type?  Since there's a fair share of CSS and markup required to do this, I don't know if I can do that through the "basic page" content type that was there. 

I'm looking for pointers that can teach me how I would become aware of what Drupal can and can not do.
There are a number of options available to customise the front page -

have a look at 
http://www.devdaily.com/blog/post/php/how-customize-content-front-page-drupal

I usually go the route of creating a custom page-front.tpl.php (as explained in the link above) and then use a combination of views and blocks to get in the content I need.

hope this points you in the right direction...