Okay, thank you everybody for the help / responses.  It took forever for me to mine 1 darn coin, but at least now I know how the wallet works.  Secure wallet created.  Perhaps somebody would be kind enough to donate a coin that I lost in the void because I was dumb?

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Thanks everybody!

Okay, one more noobie question, where would I find the wallet.dat file?

So if I re-built my machine, and made note of my address on a text pad, is there any way I can get it back?