[jQuery] JQuery Function Menu Fade

[jQuery] JQuery Function Menu Fade

Hi Guys
I would appreciate if someone could guide me and provide some help into building a menu like this <a href="http://www.stunicholls.com/menu/pro_dropdown_2.html" target="_blank">http://www.stunicholls.com/menu/pro_dropdown_2.html</a> using the ordered list below.
The Fade issue I would like to compose is when hovering the LI items to have the sort of Fade In/Out on hover rather than the static Color. I suppose it would be possible to fade In/Out a background image set on the LI attribute.
My unordered HTML list is something similar to
<ul id="menu">
    <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a class="drop" href="#">Software</a>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="#">Item1</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Item2</a>
            <ul>
                <li><a href="#">Item2.1</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Item2.2</a>
                    <ul>
                        <li><a href="#">Item2.2.1</a></li>
                        <li><a href="#">Item2.2.2</a></li>
                    </ul>
                </li>
                <li><a href="#">Item2.3</a></li>
            </ul>
            </li>
            <li><a href="#">Item3</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>
Thanks for the help!
Cheers
Karen