A newbie w/ sharp scisors in one hand and Phal. roots in the other.

[TheCanfield]

Hello All,
before I get started w/ my question I have to say I love this site it has TONS if information (but you already knew that )

I recently discovered the world or orchids... I have been growing other things and haven’t killed a plant yet.... but there is still time um...
My question if one of opinion and even worse an opinion based of off a series of pics I took....so here is the story

This is my first orchid the day I bought it, from a nursery in Jacksonville:


I read tons about orchids AFTER I bought it and as I read I saw tips on buying orchids and what to look for as I started poking around my new plant I started to notice some roots that didn’t look healthy at all....specifically the aerial root in front as you can see here, all shriveled and nasty looking (its circled in red):


I then read that w/ monopodial its not entirely critical to repot in the spring as long as your not repotting while in bloom so I decided to repot: I bought the medium just for orchids and a better pot for drainage and went to town.. this is what I found when I cleaned all the old medium off of the roots:


so then I trimmed away all the black, mushy, hollow and dried roots away....some of then right up against the ?? nub?? center?? shaft?? (please tell me what this part is called) and overall did my best to clean it up w/o getting carried away and this is what I ended up w/:


I don’t think its good but I think that its not nearly as bad... after repotting it in the new medium this is what the repotted plant looks like:


you can kind of see I have a piece of clay pot propping up the plant until it roots (a stick wasn’t working) and that’s my 'Does it need water stick' in the front....
basically my question is...what did I do wrong or does it look terrible or did I do the right thing is there something I should still do...um...just over all feed back would be wonderful...oh and what about fertilizer...I haven’t put any on yet doesn’t seem right w/ fresh wounds and all.
um... thanx for any input...as you can see i am already camera happy so there will be almost weekly pics of this bad boy so we can watch it grow together...Thanx again for any help and for a wonderful site.
-TheCanfield