jQuery UI tabs and external links

jQuery UI tabs and external links

I have a some tabs and some links outside the tabs on the same page. When a link is clicked I want to
  1. switch to a certain tab
  2. load the href of whichever link was clicked into that tab
1. switch to a certain tab - I have done no problems with:
  1. $('.event_link').click(function() {

  2.         $tabs.tabs('select', 2);

  3.          return false;
  4.     });

But I cant work out how to achieve 2. load the href of whichever link was clicked into that tab. I've tried adding this but it didnt work
  1. $asd=$(this).find("a").attr("href");
  2. $tabs.load($asd); 
Any help would be great, thanks in advance