ALAS my problem is solved by some digging around on the ol' web. I found
these two over at luminous-landscape.com. It's a bit of reading(not too heavy) but has really opened my eye to the histogram and understanding its value. As I poked around on the site, I discovered
the Understanding Series. It's a series of not-so basics in the digital imaging world and understanding these concepts and tools that make our DSLRS well.....go....shoot ( for lack of better terms.) Check it out, this little series has definitely solved this threads problem.