I am relatively new to the idea of promoting my blog. I don't want to spam anyone, and I'm not in search of meaningless traffic. I'd like to gain real readers who are interested in what I have to say and who probably have things to say that I will be interested in. I've been told that trackbacks and pings are ways that bloggers interact, and I've been told that you can't both trackback and ping the same blog. I'm still pretty lost, though. Help?

Hmmm...looks like previous poster answered your question about pings & trackbacks, however if you are looking to find people across the world to look at your blog & give you feedback there then the best thing for you to do is browse through other peoples blogs, leave comments on those that you like & soon, they will start coming to see what yo have to say, as well.
Bloggers form unofficial communities (I guess some are official) and what I have found is that when I befriend one blogger, I usually end up befriending several of their fellow bloggers as well & vice-versa.
Good Luck!