Thanks for the advice. Off to notify him. Jilla >I am not a systems expert, but there can be any number of reasons for this >including the system being overdue for a reboot, hard disk having read/write >problems, a virus having gotten started up on the system, some sort of >infinite loop taking place, etc. I would be sure to mention the problem >to my system administrator at once. If he is not already aware of the >difficulty (and he probably is) he might be grateful for the notice of >something amiss; extreme delays can be warnings of a system about to >crash or other major pain-in-the-butt problems for systems personnel. > >-- John Witherspoon > American University > Washington, DC