Thanks for all the responses and congrats! The FCC posted my call sign today, KC2OOS, and tonight I attended my first club meeting at the South Jersey Radio Association, which happens to be the oldest continuously operating radio club in the country (so they claim).

Here's my thoughts for where I'm going in the ham community...

I'd like to be involved with the local emergency comms group. At the meeting tonight, I made contact with the local coordinator for my township. My family has a long history of service in the emergency services. My grandfather was a Battalion Chief in the NYFD, my grandmother (and other family members) served in their local ambulance corps, my father was an ER physician, and my mother is an RN with her county's health department.

It's about time for me to replace my car, so I've been thinking of something with some off-road capability. My ideal would be a long-wheelbase Jeep CJ or Wrangler that I want to fill full of electronics and comm gear. The ultimate to me looks like the impending Icom IC-7000 (you can watch TV on it, too!), which should fit in the Tuffy Products overhead console (same dimensions as the IC-706MkIIG, which according to http://www.commtechreview.net/jeep/tuffy1.htm fits nicely). I'm planning on having an HF/VHF/UHF unit along with a CB, scanner, GPS, and one or two in-car computers, assuming I can fit it all somehow. I want to route all the audio outputs to a halfway decent car stereo, nothing eardrum-shattering. If you follow that link above and check out their whole rig, you'll have an idea of what I'm thinking.

Budget is always an issue, of course (and that IC-7000 is rumored to come out at somewhere around $1500), but I make an OK living. Needless to say, because of the expense involved, I won't be building it all at once. I'll also be doing all the installation myself.

But, first things first--I don't even have the Jeep, yet. Realistically, I'll probably start with a decent multi-band HT, for now. Of course, I'll have to upgrade my license to transmit HF.