Also took some pics of the area of the spark plugs...2 of them looked pretty clean, 2 w/ some white buildup, and one w/ a semi brownish color. Is this normal or something i should be concerned about?

I also noticed when the plugs were out, a couple of the cylinders had some powdery looking stuff around the bottom right above the threads. Something to worry about or not?

What's a good way to clean this up or is it necessary?

Onto the pics... Here's The Good, the Bad, and the ugly (in that order)

 

The ones with the white and brownish mean there was water in there at one time. With the plugs in try to spray some carb cleaner and blow out with compressed are. That should take out most if it. It really isn't much to worry about.