Does anyone have a favorite tutorial for learning how to do bump maps and semi advanced texturing?
thanks 
I am sure there are some tutorials out there, and the wiki docs might have some, but I am not sure what or where they are, personally. But if I might make a suggestion, for doing any complex mapping, familiarize yourself with the buttons in the ‘map to’ panel. some other advanced things to check out:
UV mapping ( and unwrapping )
material and texture nodes
texture baking
high-poly to low-poly normals baking ( along with multi-res and sculpt functions )