So I picked up a new Nikon D300 and 18-200VR lens today. Now what do I do?

I have only had a few minutes to play with it tonight and did so without even putting in a CF card. It shoots to its internal buffer in "demo" mode. In my very dim living room auto-focus was almost instant. It actually surprised me how fast it was. Of course I'll actually have to record some images and then pull them up on the computer to see for myself what the accuracy is like.

I've never owned a DSLR before and the lat SLR I used heavily was a Minolta X700. I've been in the market for an SLR since 1996, so after 11 years I've finally made my choice and picked something up.

My last Nikon was the E5700 which I had from 2002 until late 2005 or so. Abysmal low light performance (impossible to focus), though it had an excellent lens and made some nice images. This past year I had my brother's E8800 for a long time, which I couldn't stand, despite it also taking some nice pictures and having some similarities to the E5700. Function just seemed to be in awkward places and using the menu for everything was a real drag. Low light performance sucked less but still wasn't anything to write home about. I hate electronic viewfinders so it's a real treat to move back to an SLR.

Anyone have any interesting camera talk/tips to share? I know there have been a number of camera threads in the past so I know a lot of people here shoot. The noise at the DPReview forums makes them practically unbearable to even surf casually. The whole place just feels like the majority of posters have their heads so far up their asses I'm amazed they can see anything out the viewfinder. If I ever wrote anything like that on there I'm sure the followup would go past 100 in a few hours, all filled with drivel and threats.

The bottom line for me, is that I picked up this camera to start enjoying photography again and to be able to increase my control over what gets recorded. Being dead tired at the end of the night and looking at the 3/4" thick manual does leave me a little bewildered though.