I'll be going thru your post in another thread and commenting on those pointe there, but I can hopefully knock off a few of these here.

A 2x barlow and a 9mm eyepiece gives you an effective 4.5mm eyepiece, which if I recall from the other post is right at the ragged edge of max recommended magnification for that scope, which means you're on the ragged edge of best resolution. Any degradation of viewing conditions is gonna blur out your view. Understandable that things looked a tad blurry. Were things sharper with the 9mm by itself? If so, a plain 5mm or 6mm eyepiece might be your best bet with this one.

Excellent on the Meade specific forum. They'll be the ones to answer your question on the nuts'n'bolts of your scope. If it wasn't the one at Yahoo, might I suggest that also? Go to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and do a keyword search for "Meade telescopes" -- you'll get a list of maybe 30 different Meade discussion groups.

That's the comfortable viewing distance from the eyepiece to your eyeball. Short eye relief means ya gotta get up real close, otherwise the image focuses somewhere other than your optic plane and you don't see anythng. Also, short eye relief increases the odds you'll get poked in the eye if you bump the scope while squinting into it...

Here's the definition of various eyepiece names from the Orion website

Short answer, no. You wouldn't be able to see a black hole anyway. Nebula? There might have been one behind the planet a long way away, but Jupiter's brightness would have washed out any chance of you seeing it. Let's continue -- I think this will be answered a tad further down.

I do believe you were looking thru a bit of fog, either on the eyepiece or the objective. Don't breathe on things (admittedly tough to do sometimes), and it ought to go away in a minute or two. You may GENTLY wipe an eyepiece to clean fog off, but NEVER wipe a mirror. Let's continue on for why.

The danger in cleaning mirrors lies in how easily they can be scratched. They are 'first surface' mirrors -- that is, the reflective coating is right there on top of the glass, with no protection. The mirror in the bathroom is a 'second surface' mirror -- the silvering is on the back, and the light goes thru the glass to the reflective surface and back out thru the glass again to get to you. Fine for protection against the errant blob of shaving cream, but bad for most efficient transmission of light and optical qualities...but then, your face isn't light years away...
Keep your mirror protected, and you may literally go years without having to do a cleaning. It takes LARGE amounts of dust to noticeably degrade the image through a mirror. You are liable to do more damage in cleaning than the dust does by just sitting there.
When in doubt, follow manufacturer's recommendations.
This is a good subject for the Meade discussion groups you found.
That being said...a Google search for 'telescope mirror cleaning' and 'telescope eyepiece cleaning' will get you lots of information. This subject you should read about intensely before even thinking about attempting a cleaning. One wrong move, and you have a rather expensive clothes hanger stand...
Sample mirror cleaning page
Sample eyepiece cleaning page

Your scope's go-to operating manual should give you which format your location needs to be in. Make sure you actually do need this information -- don't overwhelm yourself with minutiae...

Well, a compass that jumps out of someone's car and waits for you to find it can't be that bad a deal...
The high tension lines shouldn't cause that much of a problem if any at all...and for your goto scope setup, Polaris is fine -- it's less than a degree off being straight north. That's well within the limits of error for a goto setup. If you're just looking for a 'general' north to line things up with before doing the two-star alignment of the goto, Polaris is just fine. H3ll, the general direction indicated by the moss on a tree trunk would probably work too...

I'd suggest a Google or the like search for a beginner's weather lesson...after all, does it really matter if it's cirrus or cumulostratus clouds that are preventing you from seeing Alpheratz? A general familiarity with the weather isn't a bad idea, but is not really a requirement for enjoying the stars...again, don't let yourself be overwhelmed by information.
A nice quickie tool to help determine how things will be overnight is
The Clear Sky Clock
Here's the Ohio list.
Here's the one for Cleveland, complete with reading instructions

Alcyone is one of the stars of the Pleiades (M45, if I recall off the top of my pointy little head). Off to the right and a little up from Orion? Kinda reddish looking? That's Aldebaran, the eye of Taurus the Bull. The Pleiades are a cluster that's further up and to the right from Orion.

Mirror alignment has to do with how well the image comes through. Finder alignment has to do with pointing it in the same direction as the main scope. They are not related. DO NOT screw with your mirror alignment yet. You are asking for major league headaches at this very early date.
Mirror alignment = collimation. It's too early in the game to be playing with this for you. I'd suggest finding someone who is very familiar with collimation procedures to lead you through it the first time or three. Incidentally, proper collimation may very well require you to purchase a few tools specific to the task.

__________________
"If a tree is cut down in the rainforest, and is used to make paper to print a book, and the book is really bad, and there's nobody that will read it, do you still hear a sucking sound?"
Charlie in Dayton, A.AsC.