I would love to get together for lunch or coffee (my treat, of course) and run some ideas by someone more seasoned than me.

Very helpful.  2) Treat your duplex like a business.  

@Shawn Connors  cool I started as an agent at 18  40 Years ago .. and it has treated me well.. it allowed me to do most everything in the RE industry as I gain experience and capital..but first off was establishing an income that I could rely on..

If I expect good from people I tend to treat them with more respect, more patience, and more professionally.  

Start by treating real estate as a "project".

Not many people in Wisconsin know if you go buy the landlord forms from Office Depot (http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/677983/Adams...) and have to evict many of your forms will be thrown out in court and your lease will be treated as month to month.   

So treat it like one.

My wife and I run the property management company and being investors  we treat all of our  customers rental properties as if they were our own .  

I have treated this as more of a hobby over the past 20 years. 

These people will treat your place like a castle!