I tried searching for this topic but all of the threads I found either addressed different types of brakes or assumed you know things which I did not.

I was going to ride my bike last night and decided that it was much to cold for it so instead I decided to wrench on the bike a bit and get it into better mechanical shape. Its an old bike (and my first since I was a kid) I picked up at the beginning of January, so I'm still figuring out how everything works. I sanded the brake pads to give them more traction and readjusted the brakes so that the pads are closer to the rim. Unfortunately one of the pads is now touching the rim and the other is further away than I'd like it.

I tried unsuccessfully to get them to be more centered by attempting to adjust the two nuts on the front of the brakes as well as the nut on the bolt which goes through the frame to hold them. Any ideas on how do I go about re-centering them correctly?

I'm posting this during my lunch at work so I only have pictures from other threads to give you experts some idea of what I'm working with, but I can try and answer any questions or post more specific pictures later.

Thanks in advance for your help.