OK, so I'm not the first, and not even the second to welcome Mark Edington aboard. But I thought that my former roomie would appreciate the well-deserved props. Mark has been a force in the DB area, which is obviously near and dear to my heart. Abstract datasets, MIDAS, ADO, XML, and BDP have Mark's fingerprints all over them - and that's a real good thing. I'm also looking forward to a rousing blog entry on how to use $L properly. One piece of advice though, Mark. Don't take a vacation. It's hard to get back into the swing of blogging after a vacation, oh, say for 10 days in DisneyWorld.