O.k...so I'm new to this. I make no bones about it, there's a LOT of things I don't know when it comes to woodworking and "traditional" woodworking in particular. The vast majority of my learning has come from books and my experience thus far has been with home renovations, a couple of fireplace mantels, some built its, etc. Oh, and I'm completely self taught. I don't profess to be an expert by any means as this is very definitely a hobby for me and is about as far removed from my regular job as you can get. I'm firmly in the beginner, newbie, pain in the a$$ camp for stupid questions and a complete lack of experience...that being said, I read a huge amount from books, blogs and basically anywhere I can further my knowledge. I'm slowly putting together my hand tool kit and have been looking hard at building a bench. The bench I've almost made up my mind on is a fairly modest project and I've been advised that it is completely within the scope of a beginner to build. So today I stop at a local lumber yard in order to start getting an idea of the price and availability of the lumber I'll require. I start to describe to one of the guys what I'm looking for in a slab and that I also realize that laminating DF may be my best option for the bench top as I live in northern British Columbia. Well, without going into the gory details, I was told, in no uncertain terms, that NOBODY builds a bench using solid slabs of wood any longer. When I asked why this was the case, I was told that the moisture content if far too high and that the top would never be stable enough. I told the fellow that I've been doing a fair bit of research and that many woodworkers are using hard maple, beech, etc for their benches. This earned me a look that said that I was completely "out to lunch". I then asked about using DF in order to laminate a top and was shown DF at the low, low price of $12.00 a board foot for a 2x10! I asked about getting the DF in a 6x6 and was again told that this was ridiculous and that no-one would use such a thing as it too was unstable. During the conversation, it also can up that I intended to dress all my stock using hand planes....guy obviously thought I was a mental patient and started looking around for a straight jacket. All in all, I left the store feeling like a complete idiot...the worst of it is that this store is the only shop in town that carries anything in the way of "exotic" wood, slabs, etc. I'm not looking forward to going back in at a later date and dealing with staff who quite obviously think I'm not all there....

At any rate...I didn't really have a question or anything. Just wanted to blow off some steam. I hate being made to feel like a complete tool when I haven't made any pretenses to the fact that I don't have the knowledge and am looking for help.