Gulp. Gulp. Yes, that's me coming up after spending the past two-and-a-half days in what I affectionately call a hole, trying to finish up a feature story for the March issue of Big Builder. When I'm in my so-called hole, I spend zero time on the Web (sorry in advance to all @BigBuilder followers on Twitter), and I don't respond to really any telephone, e-mail, or text messages unless they directly relate to the story I'm plowing through. (The most notable exception being the contractors who are still working on my house, although they should've been finished before Christmas.)

But a random e-mail from my editor this morning caught my eye in what was no more than a mere couple of seconds where my focus temporarily wavered. And I'm glad it did because it totally complemented the story I've been working on, which is an in-depth analysis of Woodside Homes' emergence from bankruptcy and an evaluation of the number of strategic options company CEO Joel Shine likely is looking at as he crafts a go-forward plan for the company before the end of April.    

The e-mail had a link to a segment that CNBC's Diana Olick did on home builder confidence improving this morning, featuring none other than Shine. (I've embedded the video, but in case you have trouble viewing the player, here's a link as well.)

One of the things that I really thought was great about the segment was this line from Shine:

"I'm not going to deploy a lot of capital based on the bet that the second half of the year is going to be strong. I'm much more confident about the first half of the year."

Amen. That's definitely one of the big issues I tackled in my piece on Woodside because any way you slice it, Shine's got a tricky task at hand designing a strategic plan that will show the company's creditors-cum-owners a viable exit strategy when it's hard to know what will happen following the federal home buyer tax credit program's expiration April 30.

But this lack of visibility isn't just threatening builders like Woodside, who have been through hell and back, only to get back on their feet for what might be another set of market spasms. It's something that's going to buffet the operations of every home builder big and not so very big. (I'm particularly sympathetic to the builders who've seen their spring selling season runway significantly clipped by some nasty wintry weather.)

At any rate, if I've piqued your interest in the feature on Woodside due out in the March issue, you can get a three-minute primer on what happened to the company to put it into Chapter 11 and how it was able to fight its way out in this exclusive Big Builder interview with Shine during IBS 2010.