Thanks everyone. I kind of thought I would get flamed for buying a boat and not being an "expert"!
Russell and Todd, we can go out anytime...like I said, we are right down the road from the launch, and the boat is sitting at the resort. Our favorite time to go out is Sunday...the shop is closed, and most everyone else is going home, so we pretty much have the lake to ourselves. Not that there are ever too many boats on our lake, mostly fishermen.
Diggs and Big Heavy, my biggest fear was being one of those "guess what happened our first time out" threads!