Starting out

Ok, here's the story. About 6 months ago, while driving to a triathalon to volunteer in my kayak, I heard a story on the radio about century races. After seeing all the people doing the various triathlons I'd volunteered for, I kind of wanted to to one... but with my knees I'm pretty sure the run would have me falling apart. Biking seemed to be the answer. Right then and there (it was 6 in the morning... don't expect me to be doing bright things) I'd heard "all about" biking from Kevin and Micheal... so I decided I'd do a Century race(mountain bikers fall too much for my tastes). Once I woke up a little more, I set a deadline of two years for me to get this done (but then again, most people know how I am with deadlines).
Well, it's more than 6 months later, and I finally got my bike last week... Thanks to the awesome guys at Paragon Cycling I picked out a Cannondale CAAD 8 Optimo 2 (Pretty much all he had to do to sell me on it was have me pick it up... it weighs like 2 pounds, plus the guy at Adventure Cycling tried to sell me something completely different than the other bike I was considering). I think I've decided on doing either the El Tour de Tucson in november... or it's sister race in phoenix in April next year. In either case, I'll ride ETDT, but maybe not the full century. I'm starting to realize EXACTLY how much I don't know, but what's the point of a life goal that's easy?
So far, I've logged about 30 miles on the bike (it'd have been more if it wasn't for that damned cold last week) and ridden to work once (5 miles there, about 8 back because I was exploring on the way back), which I currently intend to continue doing until I retire. I've also got a set of lights, a sweet insulated water bottle, helmet, and both road and mountain bike shorts(if I showed up to work in road shorts I'd never hear the end of it). I'm swapping the cheap loaner pedals out for Crank Brothers Quattros hopefully next week once work figures out whether or not they can do an "alternative commute credit".
Anyways, I'm starting this to hopefully hear from other people who are in similar circumstances, people who are experts, plus my mom will probably chip in from time to time (you know how moms are). For those who are not familiar with me on facebook... pictures of the bike follow.