Yes, floating on air, LZM, thanks. Think I only have one question left.

Do I need to run sudo aptitude update before I run sudo aptitude safe-upgrade ? I mean, sudo aptitude update shows me a list of what is going to be updated and sudo aptitude safe-upgrade does the actual updating, right? So really I could just skip sudo aptitude update , right?

Yes, you do need to run the update first. That way the system compares what is available (the update bit) with what is already installed. The upgrade consists of newer versions of packages already installed along with new packages that have appeared since your last update that are now required given what you have on your system. I think you are now on top of things in total control of your system. Congrats!
jdk

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Awesome, LZM, thanks. (I really do feel amazingly comfortable with the terminal update method now.) But like "Columbo" I seem to alway have just one more question. Late at night, sleepy already, a Software Update window often appears. It's terribly easy to just open the window and install the update through that. Now, you've shown me how if there is a re-start needed to check for there being more than one kernel (and I do). And if there's a big update install I go the terminal route (the 'aptitude' update and safe upgrade way). But is there anything wrong with using those Software Update windows to do the updates? If there is, I could just ignore them and do the 'aptitude' updates once a week or I could go the terminal route each and every time a Software Update window appears (which I'd say is about every other day). If I did the weekly thing though I'd be nervous that I was not updating something in a timely way. See, I'm searching for a regular way of doing the updates. Can you suggest a way? Thanks.

On both my Ubuntu laptops (not my main machine, which is Debian) I do a weekly update and have never had a problem with that. There is nothing wrong with using the Software Update window unless there is a problem. If things get hairy you can then revert to using the terminal to get additional information useful for solving the problem. Nothing is written in stone. Use the method that you're comfortable with and that works for you.
jdk

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Perfect! Thanks LZM!