Oh, no--your input is awesome. I'm just going to have to learn more before I can understand how to use it! Ugh--I thought I had solved my problem, but realized what I thought was returning "today's hours" was actually returning the first value in the unsorted hash. So, today I am reading up on hash slices. I think this may be what I need to grab one value from a hash?

I value this forum so much because I can read and read and read about Fred and Barney and Dino (;-), and try stuff, and after awhile I feel like I'm just moving stuff around randomly and getting nowhere. It helps to have someone who knows look at it. Thank you very much for all your thoughtful input.