Thanks zyonsdream ... great suggestions and good grounded advice.
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more. I normally buy dry wood and rack it up for future use, but once in a while I come across a piece I like that is not dry. Usually I'll pass, but have increasingly been considering drying my own.
In a perfect world, I could run it through a kiln, then rack it up for future use. Problem is that its hard to justify building a kiln for just the odd piece here and there.
I'm going to explore the topic some more and may try my hand at building a smaller scale kiln. For a one off piece, its not a good investment, but as a learning tool and possible future use, it has merits.
Right now, a solar type seems the most economically sensible, but the vacuum types appeal to me due to the lower temps needed.