ferrency- I agree the biggest problem is probably the db calls. My techie fiancee also read your update and said he'd thought of that the whole time...

If I get a chance to do a major re-work I will almost surely sort everything into memory first, then do a flurry of inserts/updates. I graduate this May, but I'm interested in getting this thing as fast as possible. I leave it in the hands of my advisor and his future grads to maintain and use (maybe as a chron-job, or whenever TIGR sends out an update) and I'm having pity on them. ;)

-Jenn