The Finished Code

The completed sorting and paging code in its entirety follows:

$.fn.alternateRowColors = function() {
  $('tbody tr:odd', this).removeClass('even').addClass('odd');
  $('tbody tr:even', this).removeClass('odd').addClass('even');
  return this;
};

$(document).ready(function() {
  var alternateRowColors = function($table) {
    $('tbody tr:odd', $table).removeClass('even').addClass('odd');
    $('tbody tr:even', $table).removeClass('odd').addClass('even');
  };

  $('table.sortable').each(function() {
    var $table = $(this);
    $table.alternateRowColors($table);
    $table.find('th').each(function(column) {
      var findSortKey;

      if ($(this).is('.sort-alpha')) {
        findSortKey = function($cell) {
          return $cell.find('.sort-key').text().toUpperCase() +
                                    ' ' + $cell.text().toUpperCase();
        };
      }
      else if ($(this).is('.sort-numeric')) {
        findSortKey = function($cell) {
          var key = parseFloat...