Well folks, the k3 is put together and installed.  I still have some 
configuration issues to resolve, but this will come.
Here are my impressions of the kit build.
Background
With the help of a local ham friend the saga began a week ago last Friday,
April 4.
Since Dale is the sighted one of us, he did the parts inventory.  We ended
up being 2 screws and 1  lockwasher short.  This, however, was no problem 
since he had some leftovers  from his recent k2 build.  This inventory took
three hours.
On Monday we began to build in earnest.  The k3 assembly manual has a good 
deal of text, but relies heavily on photos and diagrams.  Therefore, with
Dale finding parts, and verifying locations and orientations visually, i did 
all the building except for three places where I just couldn't get my
fingers in to hold the screw to start it.
All boards plug into pin connectors, and there are no wiring harnesses.
In all, the total time from opening the box to moving into the shack was 
approximately 23 hours.
The build is easily accomplished with sighted assistance, I was even
catching Dale's mistakes in interpreting the assembly manual.
Calibration and setup
The  k3 has an interesting menu system in which the vfo b control is used to
select submenus and the vfo a is then used to choose specific settings 
within each submenu.  Calibration consisted of starting the frequency
synthesizer self test, selecting the installed filters, assigning a default 
filter to each mode, and calibrating output power readings.
Since the speech option is not yet available, this requires someone to read 
the screen,.  However, this does not detract from one's understanding of the
procedure.
Operation
Basic operation is pretty simple.  The k3 allows for direct keypad frequency 
entry, and with a little memorization of buttton locations, it can be 
operated without speech.
Functions such as filter selection, keyer speed selection, antenna tuning,
cw spotting, and filter width adjustment all have their own buttons.  Basic
operation does not involve use of the menus.
Conclusions
I believe that once speech exists for this rig, it will be the best thing 
out there.  So far, most reviews are comparing it favorably with rigs like 
the icom 7800.  That's high praise indeed for a $2,000 rig.
I am waiting for an answer from elecraft as to being able to use the krc2 
for cw output of displays until speech is ready.
I'll keep everyone posted on further progress.
If anyone has questions, just write and I'll try to answer them.
73 all