Hello rheeler2,

To connect to your SQL Server the first time after its install , it is better :

- to connect to the computer on which the SQL Server , you must use the windows user you have used to install your SQL Server ( as this user is the creator of the instance , you should not have problem )

- with this "creator" windows user , you should not provide the password ( advantage of Windows authentication )

The easiest ( and quickest ) way is to add the permissions of connect to the database engine to the "creator" user and to enable this user ( right-click on the user , click on properties in the contextual menu and select the Status page ). Also , you have to give to this user some more permissions like dbcreator , public and sysadmin ( page Server Roles )

In the User Mapping , you have to give some special permissions , like dbcreator , dbdatareader , dbdatawriter