Learning Vim from the inside

I'm mostly here to follow along, kibitz from the peanut gallery, and learn something. I've been a unix admin and programmer for something like 26 years now I'm looking forward to the next lesson.

I've been a Vim user for a while, but never much of a 'power' user. I'm also trying to get back into learning C for doing Arduino stuff ( after several years of Java, Python, Javascript, etc) so this seems like a good opportunity to get familier with lower level build and programming utilities that I haven't used (or at least for a very long time), and get a chance to learn more about my editor of choice in depth.

interested in understanding VIM better to learn how to customize my environment, as well as to learn better how vim interacts with the outside world. Right now, I use screen and vim in concert, but there are warts related to the 'system in a a system'. I'd like to know how difficult it would be to make an interactive python editor/shell/debugger inside of vim, and how to understand and use existing vim extensions.

Happy with this Course? - If so please vote it up here: http://shcool.slinkset.com/ and of course please contribute links to any other linux-related online learning resources you are aware of.