Jason - sounds like you're close. You might want to pick up a $50 batt charger and have it in the "Start Engine" or whatever it's called position while you're doing this (or pull your truck over there and use jumper cables) to keep it juiced up). You'll need a good battery while trying to bring this thing to life.
Sounds like you have the valve cover off, you can verify you're on the compression stroke of #1 cylinder by making sure the exhaust valve isn't opening right before that #1 piston comes to TDC. You should be able to spin the crank 90 degrees or more in either direction and that 1st valve/rocker shouldn't be moving - if it does move, it's on the exhaust stroke (you're 180 out) and you just need to pull the dizzy out and spin the shaft half way around. If the #1 cyl rocker doesn't move you're probably right where you want to be TDC on the #1 compression stroke. With the #1 piston at TDC on the compression stroke the dizzy rotor should be touching the distributor cap contact for the #1 cyl plug wire - you've figured that out already from the sound of it.
If all that is set up correctly, check for fuel squirting out of the nozzle(s) in the carb when you work the throttle linkage by hand (don't do this while cranking the engine), if you have fuel, check for spark. Your timing light will tell you if you have spark because it will light up when the wire it's connected to gets a pulse, you can also check by pulling the #1 wire off the plug and holding it near the block - have someone crank the engine and you should see a spark arcing from the wire to the block - just be careful not to get zapped - no fun. If you have fuel and spark but still no worky, pull the plugs and make sure they're not soaked with fuel, if they are, pull them all and crank the engine with (no throttle) to clean out the cylinders, then clean the plugs up, dry them off, reinstall them and try again.
It's also possible that the spark is too weak, so if you go through all this and it still won't fire, recheck your wiring and maybe look up some diagnostics to make sure the coil is putting out what it's supposed to (Reagan was in office the last time I wired a coil so I'm not much help there).
Give me a buzz if you want and I'll try to shoot out there one day this week if you're gonna be around.
Mike
fire in the hole 
