I'm a newbe to this forum so I don't know anyone personally. I do find it to be the most responsive and friendly BBS I've tried yet. Dave you have responded to my Q's more than once (I think) and I've learned from them. The more I hear about you, you and I are pretty similar. I am a guitarist and am in the process of working in some keyboards (did it before, abandoned it, and doing it again). I started with a Juno-106 years ago. After I went solo after this and that trial and error I ended up using Minidisc's with my show. I decided recently to start transferring them to MP3's and WMA's and bought a laptop and.. an ESP travelmate PCMCIA midi interface (haven't used or even installed it yet). When I moved my songs from Minidisc to the computer I also made copies to CD, just in case, but I also use these on stage. I used to just use an Alesis DataDisk and play the midi files But it was too fragile and broke one too many times. I play a lot of my songs just solo on the acoustic and love it. To keep them really dancing though, and to compete with the myriad of DJ's and work-for-next-to-nothing bands out there I need to rock out too. I never did own a store but I bet I have enough old equipment to start the seed of one. (Gee I hope some of that doesn't qualify as a negative... it's just the truth!)
Also Scottielee (others too) has answered my Q's before and it's helped me learn, which is what a BBS should do. I've tried my best to answer some others questions as best I could , just to give back.
I've got an order in for a keyboard right now and will look forward to the challenge of working it in (again) to my act. After I pay off my daughters college fund this year, I'll probably be in the market for yet another one. And another acoustic guitar, and a mandolin, and a some more percussion, and... and... and...