Looking for a new lens.

Saturday I drove up to Minneapolis, I just had to visit my all time favorite camera store National Camera Exchange.http://natcam.com/. I was looking for a long lens. Now all you photographers know that those nice long lenses are mega money, but we have to look right? I'm a Nikon user and the 600mm was way too much, I didn't even ask the price knowing full well it's up in the $6,000's. I spent a good hour with Curt Rawn and he showed me the Tamron 200-500mm http://photo.net/equipment/tamron/200_500_Di/ and I think this is the one, nice sharp photos, not too heavy for the length, and an affordable price, reviews look good, I'm having lens envy just thinking about it. I didn't buy it, but I know I will before I return home. I did buy a nice little second hand
Nikkor 18-105 ,http://www.nikonusa.com/Nikon-Products/Product/Camera-Lenses/2179/AF-S-DX-NIKKOR-18-105mm-f%252F3.5-5.6G-ED-VR.html traded in my older and heavier 105mm,and got a great deal, so I'm excited to get out and try it. As I was returning all the gear to my camera bag I happened to mention that in November I had a bought a Promaster hot shoe cable for my sb600 flash, and that I had had trouble with it last month while the sb600 was mounted to my grip. I was getting so frustrated. Here's how it went down....I was photographing an outside party and as soon as the sun went down my flash went down with it, it just died, wonderful! Now you have to remember that I'm new to flash photography and was so angry with myself at not getting it to work (couldn't get enough light - photos badly underexposed) I took the flash off the grip,with a few colorful words, replaced it on the hot shoe, a few more colorful words and moved on.Now back to Curt, he took the cord and tried it on the store camera and flash and decided it wasn't communicating properly. He went off and found  a new cord, tried it and whereas mine wasn't flashing bright enough this one was really overexposing the photo. Third cord, third try, it worked, he took the cord I'd bought (from another store) and replaced it with the one that worked, .My faith in customer service has been restored, thank you National Camera and Curt. So what have I learnt, maybe I understand more than I think, it isn't always my fault, sometimes the equipment is to blame, gotta love that one, and some times just asking the question gets you the answer that will solve your problems. Now I just have to get through the work week so I can go play!