I have a good friend in Oregon who got licensed as a ham, which was a surprise to me. I was not his Elmer. He has helped me a huge amount in the blogging world with getting my favorite blogging software working on servers with my own domain name, such as this one!  Then to my surprise again, I discovered he was dipping his toe into the vast (and my favorite) ocean of Morse Code, CW.  

When I come across great resources about CW, I now immediately think of Andy. When I got started with ham radio in 1960, the first FCC license required demonstrated CW skill at 5 wpm. One could not be a licensed ham without having demonstrated some skill with CW. This was actually a major barrier for some people to get into ham radio. So on February 14, 1991 the FCC offered the first ham license, the Technician class, that did NOT have a CW requirement. Then after the ITU dropped any Morse Code requirements from the international ham radio licensing regulations, on February 23, 2007 the FCC removed CW as a requirement for all classes of ham licenses in the US.  

Fortunately at the same time, the use of the Internet by hams had exploded. I first got onto the Internet via a dial-up connection to subscribe to a mailing list on DXing. That was before I discovered Usenet and the Bob Dylan newsgroup, rec.music.dylan. Hams, who have always been early adopters of technology began to develop lots of software & websites for learning Morse Code. In spite of no further FCC requirement  to learn the Code, lots of hams discovered on their own what a great mode of operation it is. Now there are more ways to learn the Code than ever before! So where should a person begin to learn about using Morse Code?  

The Ham Radio Resources from Anthony Luscre, K8ZT  

This guy has built an impressive website for ham radio resources, including CW. There are two versions of his excellent compilation of CW resources, which includes pretty much any resource you'd ever need, to learn about this topic.  Having Fun With Morse is one web page that lists all the CW resources he has compiled. This shows it all. But the same information is also gathered together in a Google slide show of 85 slides that come in the same order as the Having Fun web page. When you go to the slide show, move your cursor to the bottom left corner of your browser to navigate between all these slides. Once you get the hang of using this tool, it is very handy.   
For example, slides 12-13 make the excellent point that you already have CW and HF privileges once you have a Technician class ham radio license. During world wide DX contests, you can easily work stations all over the world with these privileges! Do you need a megabuck rig to do this? NO! You can do it with an excellent rig built for 40 meters (see slides 67-68), the QRP Labs rig called QCX, which you can build yourself for $49 or buy it already built for $89. No kidding, this is not a toy. It is an amazing bargain that even automatically decodes the Morse Code, as you use it.  
To get a quick overview of these possibilities, listen to the podcast that features K8ZT talking about a beginner's guide to contesting with CW. This podcast (slide 49) is excellent, only 31 minutes long, time well spent. K8ZT is an expert in this area, having won many DX contests with only five watts of CW power. It gives a great summary of the possibilities with CW and is an excellent place to start to get the motivation to learn the Code.  You can thank me later.