It may sound strange coming from me, Chad, but I feel ya. It wasn't very long ago that I found many of these articles just as impenetrable. I think the main reason I've managed to come so far so fast is that when I read an article, and 25% of it just goes straight over my head, I will still drink in the parts I get, or the parts that attach to other things I already know, and trust that the remaining 25% will fill in later as I learn more. I make connections very easily, so usually that's exactly what happens. Once I hit up enough articles, the context starts explaining things to me that I didn't already know, and over time the rest just gets filled in. The trick is to read a diverse enough pool of articles for the context trick to work.
--Patrick