ridns, glad to hear it all came together for you! Those cool white T8 bulbs are definitely hard to find. You will most likely not find them at a Home Depot or Lowe's. Try finding a lighting supply store in the yellow pages. Or go to
www.graybar.com and look for a store near you. They are bulbs used in industrial applications such as photography and studio.
Buck, the twin strip shop light you purchased most likely has a magnetic ballast (cheap, less efficient) for two F40T12 bulbs. You can use the strip light as a housing, with endcaps and all, for the bigger ballast. Ask a salesperson where the electric ballasts are in the fluorescent lighting department and look for a 4-F32T8 ballast. It should look like this...
Home Depot SKU# is 359476 for the GE unit. The Advance unit might be the same SKU, though.
You could use just one ballast, with two wires to each bulb, or buy two ballasts, and put four wires to each bulb if you need some really intense lighting.