After spreading the word of the terror they bring via Cold, Cold Heart (or something), how do I get more quests from them?

How far away from New Vegas am I if I'm semi-near Novac?

You're not too far away if you just run straight to Vegas, but there's a butt-load of content you'd be skipping to get there. You can, however, do that later, so no worries. Any NCR quests you feel like doing you may want to do now, because after doing enough CL quests they will start attacking you on sight. You can also go to Cottonwood (I think?) Cove and Nelson to the east of Novac, as there are a few people with minor tasks for you there, but basically all of the real quests come after finding Benny.

I was a little disappointed by how few opportunities there were to help CL out, but I've whined enough about that in other threads. :ahhh:

I'm doing Render Unto Caesar and the wiki says that I can either destroy the bunker or upload stuff to the chip and Caesar won't know. If I upload and help house will I be allied with both?