Well my first questions during my first read through (this time) of the main book are:
Should I begin planning and brainstorming for the game and learn the system with my players or will that likely be disastrous?
In the process of getting a game together what order is the best?  Do I get players before making decisions about location? 
Being that the players and their stories are so integral to the game, do I begin brainstorming game directions or let them make characters first?
Lastly with a first game for a GM and new players what power level would be best to start the characters?

well I know that before I was able to make a character, and even joined a play by post (in the hopes of learning the system by playing).  However real life issues (and computer hardware failures) frustrated my ability to keep up, also I felt lost with some of the mechanics.  I was really hoping to find someone who is experienced with DFRPG and hopefully has some background with the other systems I have experience in so that they could help me go step by step through learning how to run a game. 

Recently I made a character for a White Court game, using the template there are 7 different must powers some with catch information.  I may be building characters wrong if you are not required to take all of the must items listed on the template.

Perhaps someone with a better memory or the books handy could confirm this: didn't Dresden, while discussing the subject, indicate that the loss of magic lasted for some extended period of time, reqardless of what the Wizard did thereafter?  I think it was when Murphy was concerned about Dresden being impersonated by a spirit, and Dresden stepped into her house without invitation to prove he was human, knowing that the loss of magic would leave him vulnerable even after he'd left the house?

I got it then. Murphy wasn't going to ask me in. There are plenty of monsters running around in the dark that can't violate the threshold of a home if they aren't invited in. One of them had caught up to Murphy last year, nearly killing her, and it had been wearing my face when it did it. No wonder she didn't look exactly overjoyed to see me.
"Murph," I said, "relax. It's me. Hell's bells, there isn't anything that I can think of that would mimic me looking like this. Even demonic fiends from the nether regions of hell have some taste."
I stepped across her threshold. Something tugged at me as I did, an intangible, invisible energy. It slowed me down a little, and I had to make an effort to push through it. That's what a threshold is like. One like it surrounds every home, a field of energy that keeps out unwanted magical forces. Some places have more of a threshold than others. My apartment, for example, didn't have much of a threshold—it's a bachelor pad, and whatever domestic energy is responsible for such things doesn't seem to settle down as well in rental spaces and lone dwellings. Murphy's house had a heavy field surrounding it. It had a life of its own; it had history. It was a home, not just a place to live.
I crossed her threshold uninvited, and I left a lot of my power at the door as I did. I would have to really push to make even the simplest of spells work within. I stepped inside and spread my hands. "Do I pass inspection?"

It never says that it lasts longer than the wizard stays in the home which created the threshold, in fact it says leaves it at the door, which is more akin to the gun and bouncer analogy.

If you want to learn how the game is played, read the "Forced to Fight" game in the PbP section of the forum.

I have read a couple of the threads for the PBP groups that are playing.  While it helped explain some things, I don't feel I understand what is happening behind the actions.  What I mean is why one skill was chosen over another or how a power was applied.  My hope is to eventually run a game and I feel I really need to play a game first to make sure I run the game right.

I have a character concept.  I have to admit I am a little unsure how best to flesh it out.  I have left many of the details as vague as I can to make incorporating it into a campaign as easy as possible.

One of the reasons I am not sure how to flesh it out is that I am not sure what template to use.

Strong Celtic heritage
Freedom Fighter with supernatural skill
Innate powers that work more on instinct than action
Inhuman Recovery - Unknown catch
Cloak of Shadows or Echoes of the Beast (not sure which would be more fitting, leaning toward Echoes)

Backstory
During an engagement the enemy used a supernatural element which devastated the forces he was with.  A small group made it back however he was seriously injured and returned home to rest. While home his maternal grandmother watched over him placing runes around him and performing rituals to aid his healing.  This unlocked some supernatural gifts inside him and the severe injuries healed in a remarkably short time and more fully than expected.  Along with the improved constitution he found his senses improved as well.
After fully recovering he returned to duty.  In his first engagement to his dismay he was the only one in the group to survive.  After five back to back engagements where he was the only survivor his reputation as a jinx was solid.  Even he started to believe that he would bring disaster to others he works with. 
He returned home dejected and angry with himself.  His grandmother told him of his maternal grandfather who could trace his lineage back to the Norse raiders.  The stories of his family said that the men were part of the Viking Berserkers.  She went on to help him perform a ritual to connect to that part of his ancestry.  After doing so he felt more in sync with himself.

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I welcome anyone to give me ideas on how to write this character up.  I am looking for a character kinda like a combination between a lycanthrope and Kincaid. 
I will add to this as more ideas and such come to me.  I have to admit that I have played mostly mechanics driven games for a number of years so focusing so heavily on the concept is nice but I am finding it hard to put into words some of what I have in my head.

These forms are great, however there is one problem that was previously reported that has not been corrected.  On the City Sheet (Faces) the "Relationships" field for the left hand NPC on the second row and the right hand one are both linked to the same data, so filling one out fills out the other.  This makes one of the two unusable unless you plan your NPCs to both know the exact same people.

I want to thank everyone who posted comments.  Nearly all were very useful (even if all they did was reaffirm that what someone else had said was a sound point of view).  I decided in the end to let the player who wanted to base the character on herself go forward, however I did make sure (via subtle questioning) that she would be not only able to handle negative circumstances but also to make sure that she would not have an idealized version of herself.  Actually she came up with more negative traits and beginnings of aspects than she did wholly positive ones.  I am much more at ease with the idea of her character.
I am still a little uneasy about the apprentice issue as there is no clear cut template for the apprentice.  I know it says that it is a less powerful wizard but that is vague.  Can someone point me to a post of a completed character that they feel would be at the "Waist-Deep" power level as an apprentice wizard.  That would be a huge help.
The second player wants to play a native american medicine man apprentice.  I am not sure if I should encourage him to use the wizard template as well or if the focused spellcaster or even sorcerer would be best as a starting point.  If anyone has any suggestions with that I am open to those as well.
We have chosen to use our home town (I heard what you all said about the possible difficulties of arguments), we have many locations and faces in mind and have themes and threats, our next step is to work on aspects for the city.  It seems like the aspects are what hang our group up the most.  We are only able to work on it for a couple hours at a time so it is being spread out over a number of days, however this is letting us come up with ideas and then go and get the research material to flesh out those ideas.  A good and bad point there.
Anyway I am welcoming all feedback and once we have completed forms I am interested in posting them to get feedback on the final result if any are willing to do so.

As an aside, I thought this would be funny to share:
About two days after buying the books and starting to read them, my desktop computer's power supply went out (not a big deal as they are sometimes the most common things to go out), anyway within a day I had the replacement and installed it.  About 48 hours after that I was informed that the video drivers were out of date and proceeded to upgrade them.  After doing so my main monitor went blank (I have two video cards and three screens).  I got concerned but the computer wanted to do a restart to complete the driver update so I wondered if maybe it would correct itself.  I let it reboot and then the computer would power on and nothing would show on any monitor (this issue is still being worked on).  I could attribute it to a computer just being flaky as they can be at times. 
However then about a week later I had been using my laptop, plugged into my monitor to make for a more comfortable viewing position, and I get a blue screen of death.  When the laptop restarts it says that there was no system disk.  I started to freak out and went into the on-board diagnostics and it said I had no hard drive. Come to find out the laptop hot overheated and the hard drive became a little loose.
 The laptop happened to go out while researching something during a planning session for our DFRPG game.  Now everyone is "convinced" that I am a burgeoning wizard who is fouling up my machines with my aura.  At the beginning of each of our sessions now there is a running joke about keeping the laptops away from me.
I felt it was funny and wanted to share.