>>  Since boost contains no sleep/wake functionality

Ashley ! Boost threads have sleep functionality. See the following example.

#include <boost/thread.hpp> 
#include <iostream> 

void wait(int seconds) 
{ 
  boost::this_thread::sleep(boost::posix_time::seconds(seconds)); 
} 

void thread() 
{ 
  for (int i = 0; i < 5; ++i) 
  { 
    wait(1); 
    std::cout << i << std::endl; 
  } 
} 

int main() 
{ 
  boost::thread t(thread); 
  t.join(); 
} 

If you will use join(); your main method will automatically wait for thread to complete it's execution.
You can also use Mutex for synchronization issues if you have.

- Rahul