Thanks for the suggestions. If I were to buy a "real" breadboard, where could I get a surplus of parts (resistors, caps, ICs etc.) from cheap? I've ordered from digi-key in the past and they are pretty expensive when buying small orders.
I'm not sure I'm quite at the point of designing my own circuits yet. I've been out of school for a year and am trying to brush up on my skills. Even so i have all of my old college books that have LABs to build in them, I'm just in need of actual parts. Thanks for all the help so far.