Just wanted to drop by and let everyone know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth just yet, it's been a very busy time for us. At this point we are pretty sure there is not much in the Boise area that we have not looked through for housing, we actually found a house, put an offer on it and the owner was flake and after two weeks of proving that we had a loan we finally told them to either sign the offer or drop dead.
Unfortunately they are still kicking around and we lost about 2 weeks worth of house searching time, very very frustrating for us. The bright side is that we finally found some very nice houses this time in our price range with good size 3 car garages and some buildings with Shops, so this time the pickings are looking a little better. I must say that this is the first time I have actually lived outside of California (been a native all my life) and I really really like it here, very pretty country, taxes and prices are hard to beat and the people are just wonderful. It's a little cold (was down to 24 this morning) but I'm fine with it, my wife is dressing like Nanuke of the north much to my amusement!
The one thing that still makes me laugh is you cannot buy hard alcohol at a grocery store, you have to visit a *real* liquor store and they have very limited hours, not that I'm a big drinker but a little rum in my nog this time of year is a good thing, imagine my surprise!!! I told my wife I bet they take your picture and then follow you home if you buy anything over 80 prood 
I'm still working for Macromedia and waiting for the shoe to drop and that's the one unknown for us right now, but Michelle loves her new job and has so many opportunities that even if I lose my job there's no doubt we would be fine (I'd just do what Woolsons doing for a while). The hardest part is that I can't build, I have 3 of my guitars with me at our apartment and I've had time to start playing again and it feels good to get back in the groove. There's a very nice woodcraft here, I'll miss the Rockler in concord and some of the bay area perks like Fry's Computers (for those who don't know, fry's is like an ultra super large geek store, with everything from music to computers to Audio Video, it's geek heaven).
The one thing we are going to do this time is spend a good deal of time just making the shop right, I've decided I'm putting up beadboard so I can hang shelves where-ever I want, I'm going to put in a raised wood floor to keep out moisture and prevent damage to falling tools. I'm running a full dust collector system and putting the dust collecter and the aircompressor out in their own little building to keep the noise down and save space. I'm also doing 220 for the big tools this time, it's going to be alot of work but in the end I want a shop that I just focus on building in, that's the goal.
There doesn't seem to be too many builders in the area, there is Bolen Guitars who make custom electrics, I have not had a chance to stop by and chat with them yet but I will at some point. I have seens a couple of other builders but not many and certainly not like the bay area had, it's not bad just different.
Anyway I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving if I don't make it back by then, I'll be around and will post pictures as soon as we have the keys to something...
Cheers All...
-Paul-
