autoxer:
"Here" is Flagstaff, AZ.
Ok - well, Flag probably doesn't have great pickin's (is your "local" electronics shop a Fry's Electronics? I can't recall if they have one up there or not - probably no)...
Electronic Goldmine is in Scottsdale, btw - but does -not- have a storefront (web only). All Electronics ships quickly from California (I've seen 3 day times to my place in Phoenix using standard shipping).
If you have a free Saturday, though, you might consider getting up early and coming down to Phoenix. Here we have a great place called Apache Reclamation and Electronics. Your jaw will drop when you see it. Be sure to wear old clothes. It's open on weekdays and until 4pm on Saturday. You just have to see it; there's a beauty in it's haphazard ugliness. I've been shopping there since 1991; it's been there far longer than that (they also have a location in New Mexico that I have yet to visit). It's not a "clean" place (you can literally not touch anything, and walk out after a couple of hours with your hands feeling grimy) - it is really an "indoor electronics junkyard" (they also have a large multi-acre outdoor yard off of Buckeye road not too far from the storefront; ask them for a map if you care to check that part out).
Another good place to wander around in here in Phoenix (though only open on weekdays) is a place called Equipment Exchange. Not much on small stuff, but what small stuff they have is very esoteric. Most of the stuff they sell (pennies on the dollar, I might add) is surplus and other old "junk" from various valley (and elsewhere) chip fabrication plants (think about the kind of equipment that you would see inside Intel, Motorola/On Semi, National Semiconductor, etc). Great place to wander around and just marvel at things - and sometimes, you'd be surprised what stuff you -can- afford.
For everything else - well, there's ASU Surplus (you might have something similar at NAU?); also valley Goodwills...