newbie with broken workflow

I am a few days into git and have settled into a workflow that is apparently very broken, and I'd appreciate it if someone with a more experienced eye can point out where I went wrong.

The official SCM tool at my work is ClearCase Remote Client, and it's vile... pessimistic locking, huge bureaucracy just to create a branch (I love experimental branches), no licenses for the native client. My plan was to use git (Git-1.5.4-preview20080202.exe) to track my clearcase view directory, and push changes into that repo when convenient from my working directory repo (clearcase makes non-checkedout files read only, which makes working directly in the view directory Ugly).

Here is a timeline of how I tried to do this:

/c> cd /c/cc /c/cc> git init /c/cc> git add * /c/cc> git commit /c/cc> mkdir /c/wd /c/cc> cd /c/wd /c/wd> git clone /c/cc /c/wd> cd cc/ /c/wd/cc> ls /c/wd/cc> vi config.ini /c/wd/cc> git checkout -b config_changes /c/wd/cc> git diff /c/wd/cc> git add config.ini /c/wd/cc> git commit /c/wd/cc> git checkout master /c/wd/cc> git merge config_changes /c/wd/cc> vi config.ini /c/wd/cc> git push /c/cc /c/wd/cc> cd /c/cc /c/cc> vi config.ini # doesn't show the change made in experimental branch, though gitk shows the patch /c/cc> git status # says that config.ini has been modified /c/cc> git add config.ini # grasping as straws /c/cc> git commit # changes nothing, as far as I can tell /c/cc> git reset --hard #still changes nothing. My diffs are there in the log, just out of reach

I have much to learn, but in the short term I just need to get those changes into clearcase so QA can pull them