Billy,
Funny thing is that I have been looking at the Uber Geek site for years and NEVER put together or noticed it was Scott Morris - might have but did not really know who he was until I started hanging out with you over at the Cisco Learning Network and noticed these posts from this CCIE
Funny thing is the Crunchy guy over in the voice post talking about lack of help in forums and here is a 5 or 6 time CCIE (technically he is a 4 time CCIE but that is just a matter of time) who answers ALOT of questions over in that Cisco forum and I know he is in other forums also

and he does answer a lot of questions and from some newbies also!!
Back to my Ebay purchase - got the 3524 POE switch for like $60, came yesterday and it works just fine, already blew away the config to get password access and backed up the IOS on my TFTP. I have 2 Cisco 7910 VoIP phones on the way - $10 each as well as Cisco SoftPhone so I will be able to start doing some HANDS-ON VoIP labs starting next week. Will have to keep reading and watching the CBTs to determine what Voice WICs I will need!!
Or I can see how to use the MC 3810, which I fired up for the first time and it works just fine - backed up the IOS to TFTP. It has FXO and FXS ports already installed as well as 2 serial connections and a T1 (I think ?) - I know it is old but it is fun to learn the technology from the ground up!!!
Here is the ironic department - 8 months ago I bought 5 or 6 rack mout ears (deal

)for 1900-2900-3500 switches - they all are the same, because I was getting some switches for work and EVERYTHING at work is rack mounted to make it harder to walk away

I think I have picked up 7-8 switches since then and even though they do not show rack ears in the auctions -
THEY ALL HAVE COME WITH RACK EARS 
now if I did not have those extra rack ears - none of them would have them. I think I will buy an EXTRA box of $20 bills ........
Just some thoughts!
E.A. Broda
CCNA, CCDA, CCAI, Network +