Nook color fun!

I got a nook color for my birthday! It's actually been really awesome so far. I spent about 20 minutes with the stock software and decided that I needed to get a decent version of android running. Looked up some instructions and it turned out to be remarkably easy.
Here's how:
Before you begin make sure you don't actually want any of the stuff currently on your nook. You can always restore your nook to it's original state, but this is going to wipe everything.

Section 1:

Create a special microSD card. You have to download one of the images from here and burn it to the card. I did this in linux, but there are other instructions out there. Once you are done you will have an SD card that the nook will boot off of and allow you to flash a new ROM in addition to a bunch of other really useful things.
WARNING: DO NOT USE THE NOOK'S INTERNAL CARD READER. YOU MUST USE YOUR OWN. IF YOU DO NOT THIS PROCESS WILL NOT WORK

1. Extract the image and save it somewhere you remember.
2. Unmount the sdcard.
3. execute `sudo dd if=PathToSDImage of=/dev/sdb (note replace sdb with where ever your sd card is located)
4. wait.
5. keep waiting this takes a while

Section 2:

Now that you have this specially formated sd card, it's time to grab a ROM. I choose to go with Cyanogenmod.

1. Download the ROM  here 
2. Download the google apps addon here
3. Place both files on the microSD card

You may also want to check the MD5 signatures of the files you download. Don't want to flash something corrupt. It's no big deal if it fucks up though because you can always boot of the sd card again.

Section 3:

At this point we're going to be using the recovery image you burned to the SD card. Reboot your device with the card inserted. Navigating menus isn't immediately obvious. Here are the key mappings
Volume Up: Move up in the menu
Volume Down: Move down in the menu
Power (press): Move up a menu level
Power (hold): turns off
Nook Button: Select
If you want you can create a complete and restorable backup of your nook here's how

1. Choose backup and restore
2. choose backup 

backing up

Flashing the ROM!

1. Reboot your nook with your new sd card inserted
   
2. Select install zip from SD
3. choose zip from sdcard
4. choose cm-update-VERSION.zip
5. confirm you want to flash
6. select install zip from SD again
7. choose gapps-somethingsomething.zip
8. power off the nook by holding the power button down
9. remove the sd card otherwise it'll boot into recovery again
10. turn on your nook
11. wait this first boot takes a while
12. ENJOY!

choosing flash zip

choosing the zip

Confirm

That's it. You've successfully flash Cyanogemod to your Nook.